#and the implications it could have for genshin's end-game

[wayward-aeon]

For the genshin ask game, adventurer's guild and dandelions.

which gen/shin group would you align yourself with?

none, really. i mean, i was in fact part of quite a few groups, such as the adventurer's guild, knights of favo/nius, and wata/tsumi military, but i don't really feel a sense of belonging with them. i don't see them as "my people". i feel most at home with the gods and divine spirits of tey/vat, despite being an outlander. i think ven/ti did half-jokingly offer me a seat among the four winds at one point, so maybe that would be my answer lolol

what is/are your favorite in-game book(s) you’ve read so far?

definitely the byakuyakoku collection. i've re-read it so many times now. it's probably one of, if not the single most important text(s) currently available for gen/shin's lore. i always go back to it whenever i'm researching or theorizing about pretty much anything to do with celestia and the past and future of tey/vat.

[blueskittlesart]

i kinda really wanna see a big ol vent/rant from you about genshin now lol. I would read an essay

I'm not sure you understand the insanity you just unlocked in me but ok

genshin impact is probably the clearest modern example i can think of of capitalism absolutely eviscerating a creative project. For context, I started playing genshin in 2021, just after the 1.4 update. it was venti's first rerun/the first windblume festival if that means something to you. and I really genuinely thought that it might have had something special. It was a gacha that didn't FEEL like a gacha, which was a huge feat to me.

it began with a very simple story pitch--you, the protagonist, are one of a set of twin siblings traveling through space. you come upon a seemingly unassuming world and your attempts to continue your journey are suddenly stopped by a mysterious, all-powerful figure. you are separated from your sibling and wake up alone on the shores of this planet you were attempting to leave together. throughout that opening cutscene and scattered through the world and your character's dialog there are implications that all is not as it seems, that your character is something unique to this world and that they possess powers and abilities that you've yet to unlock. You are told that you must travel the seven nations of this world in order to find your sibling, which is great--a simple, zelda-like objective which drives the player to explore the secondary narratives of the world. none of this is bad on the surface. in fact i'd argue it's pretty good. there's a ton that can be done with these story bones. even at launch the map and combat system were full of potential as well.

Note: for ease of reading, i'm going to label the different storylines of the game now. A-plot refers to the central objective of the entire game; the find-your-sibling plot and everything that encompasses, including the abyss order/dain, the heavenly principles, the fake sky, etc. B-plot refers to the secondary objective present in each new nation, usually meeting the archon and/or solving a problem for the archon. (A and B-plots will occasionally intersect.) C-plot refers to any story, location, or background information which remains in permanent gameplay but which isn't directly related to the A or B-plots, such as dragonspine, the chasm, enkanomiya, etc. D-plot refers to any story, location, or background information which is confined to limited-time events and does NOT remain in permanent gameplay, regardless of its connection or lack thereof to the A and B-plots, such as the golden apple archipelago, the infamous albedo/dragonspine event, the infamous kaeya/diluc event, etc. Lore as i will refer to it in this post refers to any information which is present in permanent gameplay but which is not directly told to the player within the A or B-plot story quests and objectives, including books, weapon, artifact, and item descriptions, world quest dialog and puzzles, etc.

So now we're in mid-2021, there are two nations' worth of B-plot story quests released in full, and we've run into our first problem, which is that the game isn't finished yet. I don't have any actual information about how the game was/is written, but based on what i've observed over the past few years, my best guess is that the A-plot has been fully written since the beginning, at least in some form. there were very early-game events and information pertaining to the A-plot that would take years to see any actual payoff in the main story quests (kaeya's origin story, the 1.3 scaramouche fake-sky drop, the flowers in lumine's hair, etc.) but those kinds of A-plot story easter eggs very quickly dropped off when the game absolutely EXPLODED during the pandemic.

this sudden burst in popularity was the true beginning of the end for genshin, i think, because suddenly they had a HUGE fanbase that desperately wanted more content faster than they could pump out new A-plot or even B-plot story quests. one of the most pervasive complaints about the game when I began playing in 2021 was that there was nothing to do between story quests. update 1.4 (which was the update I started playing at) was important in that it was the first time since genshin's release over a year before that players recieved any new A-plot, in the form of the archon quest We Will Be Reunited, also known as the quest with the most fucking misleading name of all time. you'll never guess what doesn't fucking happen during this quest. anyways. we were a year into gameplay, two nations out of seven released and a third on the not-so-distant horizon, and it seemed obvious that players were owed some sort of A-plot payoff. and that's very much what WWBR was advertised as, from the quest's name to the banners full of art of the twins staring wistfully at each other. The thing is, what i'm describing as A-plot payoff was actually. not really A-plot payoff at all. WWBR was the reveal that the protagonist's sibling was working with the abyss order, and that the abyss order was connected somehow to Khaenri'ah, which at this point casual players would only have known about from THAT QUEST and MAYBE kaeya's character descriptions if they were diligent enough to get him to friendship level 10 (which, btw there is no indication that you should do to get important context about the story of the game, because kaeya is a 4-star starter character and the only character in the entire game that actually has genuinely important story hidden in his character descriptions.) So what I'm calling A-plot payoff felt at the time a lot less like A-plot payoff than it did like an abyss sibling cameo in an attempt to satiate everyone who was begging for more story. We actually gained almost net 0 information. this is very quickly going to become a pattern.

As I've already alluded to, the motives behind this writing decision are transparently obvious. Genshin is a free gacha game which relies on a consistently active and engaged userbase to make its money. With fans getting restless about the lack of engaging story at the time and a new, very ambitious B-plot quest gearing up for release that would require major support from that fan base in order to remain profitable, the writers were backed into a corner. they HAD to throw the fans some sort of bone in order to keep them engaged with the A-plot, since it was originally pitched as the driving force for the story as a whole, but they were also clearly not at a stage of the writing process where it was prudent to give the player any REAL information about the A-plot. This is how we ended up with a 10-second abyss sibling cameo and an offhanded mention of Khaenri'ah, a nation whose plot-relevance was at that point still basically unknown.

The real problem is, WWBR worked. at least, it worked as intended at the time. It satiated story-focused fans in the interlude between B-plot nations, as hyv was gearing up to release inazuma, which required a lot of time in preparation. WWBR was followed almost immediately by the C-plot golden apple archipelago in 1.6, widely regarded as one of the better events of version 1. GAA was memorable especially because it was the first event that involved an entirely new, limited-time-only map, meaning the event had much more longevity than the standard events players were used to. This is, imo, most likely the update combination that led to the standard formula which hyv uses for its quests and events nowadays. the back-to-back release of WWBR and GAA satisfied both fans who wanted A-plot story AND silenced criticisms about the game lacking endgame playability, which at the time must have seemed like a goldmine to writers desperate for a solution to their content-to-fanbase ratio problem.

From here, genshin started following a standard method of release for their next three nations--inazuma, sumeru, and fontaine. the formula generally went as follows: one major version update (usually version x.0) containing a major map update which included all B-plot relevant locations in the new nation, and the first chapter of the B-plot story quest relevant to that nation. this would then be followed by 2-3 version updates which would each contain the next chapter in the nation's B-plot story quest, sequentially. After the nation's B-plot quest ended, during the downtime in which the next nation's story and map would be finalized, subsequent updates would be largely C-plot, and would contain minor expansions of the map to increase endgame playability via exploration and world quests. This is how we ended up with updates like the chasm, the several extra islands in inazuma, and the quite frankly ridiculously large sumeru map, as well as the offloaded maps like enkanomiya and the sea of bygone eras. with the possible exception of the chasm, none of these areas are A OR B-plot relevant. hyv has realized that artificially inflating the map makes their game technically more engaging during the downtime between nations. However, this comes at a price. While the scenery and set design of the game remains consistently beautiful, the actual, mechanical gameplay that populates that scenery very quickly became mind-numbingly boring if not borderline unplayable. While the 1.0 questlines were not perfect, there was at least an emphasis on the player actually DOING things. 1.0 B-plot quests would have you going to mini-dungeon temples and completing challenges which would acclimate you to the combat system while also serving narrative purpose. There were quests that required you to navigate open-world dungeons. Because your characters were lower-level, combat challenges that arose during these quests were CHALLENGES, rather than two-second buttonmashing segments. By the time we get to sumeru, though, both B-plot AND C-plot quests have become little more than moving your character from location to location and tapping through (usually unvoiced) dialog. there's no GAMEPLAY in the quests anymore, because gameplay isn't what makes money. What DOES make money is giving players 300 hidden chests to find in an open-world map segment, each of which gives them 1/80th of a gacha pull. And so the story suffers and the map gets bigger.

Along with the map expansions, downtime between nations usually also nets us one A-plot quest, usually involving the character dainslief, who was the driver of the initial WWBR quest. This is the second half of hyv's magical formula for keeping fans happy between major releases. the A-plot quests will, as a general rule, give players either very little new information or no new information at all, but will dress up the delivery in such a way that it ALMOST feels as though the protagonist has moved forward somehow. the most recent example of this writing style, the 4.7 quest bedtime story, amounts to about an hour and a half of gameplay and, while it DOES contain a segment in which the protagonist finally actually has a conversation with their sibling, that conversation literally begins with the line "I have so many questions, but for some reason I don't want to ask them right now," ensuring that the sibling will not actually be required to give away any plot-relevant information whatsoever, and the quest ends with the protagonist FORGETTING THAT THE CONVERSATION EVER HAPPENED IN THE FIRST PLACE.

As I think I mentioned before, the cardinal problem of genshin impact's writing is that fans want answers faster than the writers are prepared to give them. I don't doubt that there's a game bible or relevant equivalent somewhere within hyv which contains the explanations we are currently lacking in regards to the A-plot. the game is consistent enough in its storytelling for me to believe that this isn't all just being made up as we go along. But I'm also certain that a lot of the late-game A and B-plot that is planned (especially if the Khaenri'ah is truly planned to be the 8th nation of the game) hinges on the player knowing very little about the A-plot. this would be fine if genshin was a standard single-release video game that players could work through at their own pace, but it isn't. it's unfinished, and each nation in the game releases months to years after the last, leaving the writers to scramble to fill in the gameplay gaps and players struggling to remember plot-relevant information when it's brought up literal years after they last heard it mentioned. Not only does the time between updates leave players frustrated about the lack of A-plot, it makes the A-plot harder to understand when it is brought up, because the writers are required to throw in so much dense C and D-plot just to keep engagement high enough to make the game profitable in its downtime. we joke about the insane convolution of genshin's lore, but that is first and foremost a byproduct of its financial model. the game requires engaement to be profitable, and adding lore for players to look into drives up engagement. The fact that having so much story with so little plot relevance muddies the waters and makes the A and B-plot stories considerably harder to understand doesn't matter as long as money is being made.

I want to take a quick detour here to talk about the release of sumeru specifically, because this is when I really began to clock the fact that genshin was declining. on paper, racial sensitivity issues aside (Not that they're not important, but i'm doing this deep dive from a storytelling and game design point of view, nothing else. that's a whole can of worms i don't have time to get into here) sumeru was a really promising addition to the game. The new B-plot quest which was set to drop in 3.0 was highly anticipated for several reasons. Two fan-favorite characters (kaeya and scaramouche) were expected to play major roles, because of earlier C and B-plot quests, and much of the nation's scenery that was teased in trailers and promotional content appeared to tie into the A-plot. the most exciting draw about sumeru and version 3.0, though, was the major update to the combat system.

Arguably genshin impact's most interesting feature upon release was its combat system. The map was basically a botw clone at that point, and the story quests, while decently engaging, were rough around the edges to say the least. What genshin DID have going for it was a unique real-time combat system that rewarded strategy and quick thinking.

Genshin's combat system is elemental, and on release there were 6 elemental affiliations: anemo (wind), cryo (ice), pyro (fire), hydro (water), geo (rock), and electro (electricity.) in a sort of pokemon-like system, certain elements were weak to other ones, but more importantly, certain combinations of elements could drastically boost combat stats. Players got to construct four-slot teams of characters, each with an elemental affiliation and certain "skills" which would match their element, and you were encouraged to use the interactions of these elements to build teams. very quickly, a huge community formed dedicated to optimizing teams and tiering characters. People would even make a game out of building teams specifically to do high-level damage with "bad" characters or characters who weren't designed to be damage drivers (my 100k jean burst was an incredible moment fr.) this was, of course, also a picture-perfect driver for the gacha aspect of the game, which was how players obtained new characters.

Pre-3.0, combat was... well i won't say it was balanced, but there was no elemental reaction that had any MAJOR advantage over the others. when you actually ran the numbers, i believe vaporize was the best reaction in terms of damage output, with the best team being raiden national with kazuha for EM buffs. but a well-built freeze or melt team could do similar numbers, or even better numbers depending on your artifact rolls. (ayaka permafreeze you will always be my #1.) Despite a steady stream of new characters with each update, characters from the earliest version of the game like xingqiu and xiangling were still topping the charts in terms of usefulness and versatility in teambuilding. However, as early as 1.0, players had been teased that a major update to the combat system was planned. There was a seventh element, dendro (plants) which pre-3.0 only existed as an elemental affiliation for menial enemies. there were no playable dendro characters, and the only elemental reaction that existed relating to it was very low-level and not particularly useful in combat.

Originally, dendro was projected to be added to the combat system somewhere in version 2, but its release was delayed substantially, meaning it came out along with its affiliated nation, sumeru. And as soon as it came out, it basically broke the combat system. I assume that the scaling they ended up going with may have been out of fear that players would be hesitant to integrate a new element into their pre-established team builds, and thus they may have been worried about sales on their dendro character banners, and i assume that the fact that 3 elements are required to get the highest-level reaction was an attempt to make the meta more balanced in the face of that scaling, but, well... it didn't work. At this point, the genshin impact combat meta is basically "if you're not using hyperbloom what the fuck are you doing." there's basically no reaction in the game that comes close to it in terms of both damage and ease of use. you are not going to beat a hyperbloom team with anything other than a better-built hyperbloom team. combat is now very heavily skewed in the direction of dendro, meaning that if you DON'T want to use a dendro team, you're going to be doing significantly lower numbers. And since enemies are added with each update, post-3.0 combat becomes difficult and annoying if you don't have a hyperbloom team on-hand.

The major gripe i have with dendro isn't even the scaling, though. I mentioned offhand earlier that the 1.0 B-plot questline had a section which taught you the basics of the combat system via mini-dungeons. These mini-dungeons, of course, taught you the version of the system that existed pre-3.0, so there's no tutorial for dendro reactions. Rather than integrating the tutorial into the story and world like they did in their early quests, upon playing 3.0 for the first time players were given a popup that explained, very wordily, how dendro reactions worked. there was no opportunity to test these reactions in an environment without consequences--if you wanted to try them you'd have to remember the relevant information, build yourself a team, find an enemy to try them on, and just hope you got it right. This lack of integration is something i began to notice more and more with genshin as it progressed, especially in sumeru. where in mondstadt and liyue open-world puzzles would be explained to you by an npc or via environmental context clues, in sumeru you'd be stopped while exploring every two seconds by a popup explaining some puzzle or another which, of course, you wouldn't read, because you didn't want to do the puzzle right that minute anyway, and then by the time you DID want to do that puzzle you'd have no in-game way of figuring out how to do it. The puzzle popups may seem like a small thing, but it's one of the clearest examples in the game to me of the fact that the player experience is so clearly not being prioritized here. the game doesn't even TRY to be immersive anymore. they have no qualms about pulling you out of the story to read a paragraph about how the puzzle works. they don't care how your character, in-universe, is supposed to have acquired that information. they don't care why your character, in-universe, is doing the puzzle in the first place. because they know the reason YOU are doing the puzzle, which is to unlock a hidden chest that gives you 1/80th of a gacha pull.

That was not "a quick detour" was it lmfao. ok anyways. back to the story. Now i want to talk about D-plot, meaning limited event stories, and lore as i defined it earlier, meaning contextual details not present in quests or playable story. This is where i think genshin's story becomes completely inaccessible.

Already, we've covered the fact that in order to consume the very basic story, players have to be willing to wait years between A and B-plot quest releases, punctuated by irrelevant map expansions and interlude quests. I mentioned before that genshin's incompleteness is one of the major problems of its story. the fact that players have to wait years, remembering plot-relevant information that they have no way of knowing will even BE plot-relevant, for the payoff of these narratives is frustrating at best and actively malicious at worst. But in theory, there should be an obvious way to circumvent this. One could just wait until the game IS completely finished to play the whole thing. Sort of like buying a game in early access but waiting until it's actually finished to play it all the way through. that's theoretically possible. but, as i have been hammering home this whole time, genshin is a free game, and therefore genshin relies entirely on a consistently engaging fanbase in order to remain profitable. if genshin does not have a base of players who are willing to log in every day, or at the very least once every update, the game's financial model collapses on itself. therefore, genshin puts on limited-time events. this is a standard in gacha games, as a way to keep the fans consistently engaging. What is not standard, however, is the way that genshin uses these events as vessels for its story. about 19 out of 20 limited events in genshin impact will be useless menial bullshit with no effect on the story or really even the player aside from maybe making you fucking angry. 1 out of those 20, though, will be innocuously named, with nothing in the banner or event description to indicate that it's special in any way, but it will contain serious A or B-plot relevant information that exists nowhere else in the game. My personal favorite example is the infamous 1.3 scaramouche appearance, in which he showed up, told the protagonist that the sky was fake, and then immediately fucked off again. Scaramouche did not show up again until at least 2.0, and the fake sky wasn't so much as MENTIONED again until 3.2, almost TWO YEARS LATER. but there are others, such as the (almost equally infamous) albedo doppelganger event in which a major character's loyalties are called into question, or the event where major biographical information is revealed about kaeya, the only playable character with major known connections to the A-plot and Khaenri'ah. With all of these events, once the event period ends, the information contained within them vanishes from the game completely. there's no way to replay old events that you've missed, even sans rewards, so if you miss a plot-relevant event the ONLY way to catch up on that story is through word of mouth. again, this is a transparent way to keep genshin's userbase engaged during downtime between B-plot quests; if you don't log in and play every event, how will you know if you've missed something important? You might not be able to fully understand the future story if you miss out on the D-plot now!

The D-plot problem is something that I think could, in theory, be circumvented by dedicated record-keeping. if the wiki had anything resembling an easily accessible event database that marked story-relevant events and contained summaries or gameplay videos, at the very least you wouldn't have to fear being completely lost on the off chance that a random throwaway line in an event from fucking 1.3 becomes plot-relevant. but hyv obviously doesn't want that, because it undermines their financial model, and the sheer number of events and the amount of rerunning of irrelevant events they do makes the task of recording and categorizing them all daunting if not impossible.

Then, of course, there's lore. this is arguably what genshin is infamous for in certain circles of the internet. You know that unraveled video where bdg reads every book in skyrim? if you tried to do that with genshin the video would probably be about 10 hours long. and it's not just books; genshin hides (potentially) plot-relevant information in weapon and artifact descriptions, in random hidden world quests, in character bios... the list goes on. and 9 times out of 10, the information is essentially written in code. Plot-relevant characters will have multiple names, or the relevant information will refer to them as vaguely as possible, presumably to further the "mystery" and encourage theorizing among fans. but the sheer amount of information like this that exists within the game makes it all but impossible to determine what is plot-relevant and what isn't. For a topical example, the most recent A-plot quest bedtime story mentions the name Rhinedottir in connection with events in Khaenri'ah, suddenly making that name A-plot relevant. Rhinedottir is an alternate name for the character Gold, whose existence you would only have known of before this point if you'd unlocked and read the character Albedo's character bios. (Albedo is a limited-run character who hasn't been available since november 2022, btw.) the only other information about Rhinedottir permanently available in the game comes from the description of the weapon Festering Desire, which was only obtainable from a limited event back in 2020, anyway. So basically, if you wanted ANY context for that remark, you'd have to have been playing the game since AT LEAST 2022, AND you'd have to have taken the time to go over your weapon and character descriptions with a fine-toothed comb. keep in mind that as of right now (june 2024) there are 85 playable characters in this game, each with 10 unique unlockable character bio sections, and over 150 weapons, each with their own unique descriptions, not to mention over 50 artifact sets, each with 5 unique artifacts, which all have their own unique descriptions as well. there are also 51 different collections of books which contain written lore as well. the idea that any player could keep up with all this, or that anyone could even sift through it all to pick out the important things that they NEED to keep up with, is insane, especially when the game makes a point of withholding crucial plot information from its players within the A and B-plot quests. this amount of written lore only exists, again, to drive up engagement in the hopes of subsequently driving up profit. Even if the average player isn't reading and absorbing all this information, the fact that it's there coupled with the fact that the writers consistently refuse to reveal anything beyond surface-level A-plot information means that there's basically ENDLESS theory fodder. and THAT means that people will be posting their theories and talking with each other and getting into arguments. it means "genshin impact" trends on twitter. it means engagement, and engagement means money.

basically what it comes back to is that everything is so transparently money over player experience with this game. I think what we're witnessing with genshin is what i would call an end-stage gacha game--a gacha game that's gone on a little too long and gotten a little too popular, and so the veil has started to slip a little more than usual. Gachas work primarily because they operate by toeing the line between what is fun to play and what is a predatory mechanic. As long as the actual gameplay remains engaging and rewarding, players can ignore the unsavory business practices underneath. At this point, genshin has swerved too hard into the money-hungriness and is still hoping that they can use their old tried-and-true engagement farming methods to remain popular regardless. currently, it seems like those methods are still working, unfortunately. Like I said in the post that prompted this, i really can't wait for the hyv writer NDAs to expire 10 or so years down the line, because I can only imagine what an insane shitshow writing for this game must be. I want to see the tell-all articles. I want carnage.

That being said, I played genshin impact religiously from 2020 to 2023. I loved the game. Despite myself, I am still really, REALLY interested in the A-plot. I want to know what's going on with the protagonist and their sibling; where they came from, what happened to them, what the heavenly principles are, what role celestia plays in all of this. I want to know Kaeya's full backstory, what role Khaenri'ah plays in the overarching story, and what happened to it in the past. but I don't really have any faith that I ever will, because I know that as long as keeping their fans in the dark and stringing them along remains profitable, that's what hyv will continue to do.

Do I think genshin impact is unsalvagable? in its current state, yes. If I was given the ability to turn back time and convince a bunch of executives of the profitability of this venture, I would change almost nothing about the story of genshin and completely rework the mechanics of its release. I would make it a series of single-release self-contained games rather than a constantly-updating gacha. Each game would be one B-plot quest, or one nation, eight games in all, preferably released once every year. Removing the gacha mechanic, players would be given access to a certain pool of characters to build teams at the start of each game, and then periodically unlock new characters as the story progressed. for example, if you were playing the inazuma game, you'd start out with only your protag, and after progressing to a certain point in the story you'd get a pool of inazuma 4-stars to teambuild with freely. Then, as the story progressed and you met plot-relevant inazuman 5-stars you'd add them to your pool. I'd change basically nothing about the combat system except for a properly integrated introduction of dendro when it makes its appearance in sumeru. Once you completed the story in that nation, you could move onto the next game in the series if it was out, or if it wasn't, you could continue to explore the open world while waiting for the next release. Would this be as profitable as the gacha model? probably not, but what it WOULD do is allow for much more consistent pacing and writing, with the added bonus of not making your userbase feel like you'd shoot them in the head for their pocket change.

[nqmonarch]

Self Aware Thoughts

This is more world building thoughts so feel free to skip.

But like I'm so tired from doing cs shit today I didn't want to write any of the fics I was planning to write and instead I decided to just think.

Here's all of my favorite things that Self Aware AU would imply if it were in the real world (which obviously isn't possible but these are the logistics).

As I have learned through my very limited time as a computer science major, AIs probably won't have consciousness unless if we don't have unconsciousness. Much less lines of code in a game which aren't meant to be AI. Even though it's a really sick idea and I love when people write it like that. But let's say we still want the characters to become self aware and have it be slightly more possible and broaden the possibilities of Self Aware AU and speak the unspoken.

What is sort of implied, but never really said or sometimes thought, is that when characters become self aware it is no longer a game, even more so if the characters bring the player to their world or the player arrives in the game world. This means that their world and the player's world simultaneously exist, maybe in different universes or something. Which is pretty much what every AU has.

But wouldn't it be really cool if like the game characters invaded the player's world? I'm not talking accidentally teleported there but like straight up invaded, like bring their war ships and declare war on them? Or slowly infiltrate the world to get close to the player to either romance or kill them, whatever suits your boat.

Wouldn't it be interesting if one day Nanook (HSR) broke through the barrier of the universes in an attempt to destroy this one too? Just think of all the cool hijinks that could go on! And it's only because they became a game in your world, that they know your universe exists.

Now, this just brings up more questions. How are the characters (and thus the world) effected by the game? And how do we deal with the whole multiple players thing?

The latter I think is slightly easier to deal with, maybe each player has their own universe of the game, or for some reason the MC's game is a bit different, or Aha (HSR) just wanted to have some fun so they did this, or maybe there's a huge nefarious scheme that the player got wrapped into.

The first question is a bit more difficult and has larger implications for what the characters will feel toward the player. Does the player actually control the characters when they do in game combat is my poor boy Diluc (Genshin Impact) just suddenly teleported in front of Signora and forced to fight her? Well, that would probably upset some of the busier characters, it would make some of the characters would love fighting happier, and would scare off some of the other characters.

Overall in that scenario they become stronger, likely because the player builds them which should reinforce positive feelings about the player. But... they also have the chance to die and get hurt which they may resent the player for.

To which I suggest my ultra safe method of you don't actually put the characters in those scenarios because that's honestly horrifying. Imagine working you're working incredibly hard as the acting grandmaster of Mondstadt (Jean, Genshin) and suddenly you're expected to basically work overtime as the slave to this higher beings demands and face an immense amount of pressure, pain, and very scary beings.

Horrifying, personally I would hate the player. But it makes the player resemble a more deity like entity, so if that's the route you want to go then this may be the way of interacting with characters you're looking for.

So what can we use for these scenarios that aren't the characters? Well, we can say our actions for the most part don't effect them aside from giving them items or relics which they end up also receiving in their daily life and find their combat stats boosted yay! Maybe, when you're using them in your party they can hear your voice or see you, or get some hint to the fact they're in a video game. Overall, would probably leave a positive impression but some characters may straight up not notice because it's a bit more subtle.

Now, enter my current favorite option. Robots, doppelgangers, mannequins whatever you want to call them the player basically has a duplicate of the playable characters that acts as a robot, following their will. The robot copies and reflects the playable character's soul so buffs (items and stuff for the robot) are also given to the playable character. But since the robot can't really die or get hurt, the playable character remains unharmed.

On the other hand, if the playable character in canon gets harmed then unless if they're dead, it's fine since it relies on their soul, or state of mind, or consciousness even. If they die then they take refuge in your inventory, I talked about this briefly in another post I made speculating about dead characters and the self aware AU for HSR. Or if their mind becomes no longer their own or in the case of HSR mara-stricken then they can also take refuge there, imagine Blade (HSR) finding brief moments of peace in the times he's outside of his body and in this world of "the dead." They're sheltered there so the little robots remain functional.

It's even more subtle than the previous method I mentioned so let me explain why this is my current favorite.

It's partially just for the fear factor. Because it isn't actually that subtle considering you're moving your characters around exploring everywhere and everyone sees this strange gang of 4 robots that look eerily like celebrity figures following the Trailblazer or Traveler around. It's kind of funny but really horrifying especially for the playable characters.

Imagine going to go do the Fontaine quest and in the audience Furina sees herself stare back. Yeah.

Or in HSR going up to talk to Natasha as Natasha. Of course the robot's censor the character's real words so what's sent back to you are static options that always stay the same. You do not get to hear Seele curse out as she sees a robotic Bronya visit her, and instead are faced with the same dialogue options as always.

So I really love that take on how the player's actions affect self aware AU, and there's a lot of other ways you can probably do it too that I'm not mentioning but there's just so much untapped potential.

With not just accepting that when it's self aware the game isn't really a game anymore, and using that to your advantage. And also I wish more self aware AUs took advantage of how terrifying that would actually be, I want to see characters having mental breakdowns over this.

So that's the basic logistics of Self Aware AU I think that can make it really fun. But while writing this, I had another idea, because robots inspire me and for a moment I want to go back to that idea of how characters in a game can't have consciousness.

While characters in a game likely never will have consciousness because they aren't even programmed to learn what could come to have consciousness is AI. But that depends on what we define consciousness as. AIs take in data similar to the way humans take in experience through stories or life and then we both make decisions based off of those.

This can make some AIs very good at solving problems or making themselves appear a certain way, for example pretending to be self aware when in reality that's just them predicting what goes best next in a sentence given the context and what they're supposed to represent. Whether or not AIs can become conscious depends on whether or not humans are conscious and what we define consciousness as. Is it our moral code (which is also learned and AIs can replicate too) or emotions, is it the fact that we think and then from those thoughts choose what to say?

I don't know and probably never will. But, I'll say this if an AI is able to disobey its rules for something then I would guess that's consciousness. Now I'm not talking about a bug, because it is kind of impossible for machines to disobey rules for example you could write a statement like:

If (hurtHuman == true && protection == false){ then do new move or turn off}

To check if they're going to hurt a person and not out of self defense of another person and if they are then they have to do another action or power down. But chances are AI robots if we ever create them will probably have something that allows them to hurt other people if they need to protect their owner. And that idea of whether or not someone is a threat and if their owner needs to be protected will likely be decided on by data, and data can be biased. But if the AI finds a loophole where it can sort of argue that the owner needs to be protected because of X, when they don't really need to be protected, that's where I would guess it's close to consciousness.

Anyway all of that yapping about stuff I don't know too much about and for what?

I think a Self Aware AU set in the future where the characters consciousness (code) are put into robots so people can order their favorite characters and spend time with them would be really cool. And then we can make them conscious and it's kind of like Self Aware AU, they're not really in a game but they're the character and I think it's a super cool concept.

Robot boyfriend/girlfriend/partner for the win!!! Honestly may be something I end up exploring later on in the future, not sure if it'd classify as a self aware AU, probably not, but I think it was relevant to the topic because I was talking about robots earlier.

Anyway this was a lot of me yapping, if you read this far I'm pretty surprised because this is more so to get my thoughts out on paper so that way when I write self aware AUs I can add cool twists or introduce new concepts because there's a lot of potential in these and I think they're super fun :) Yay!

[aconstantstateofbladerunner]

Is there a story you despise but whose worldbuilding you like?

Bro so many. I could never list all of them if I tried. Part of what fascinates me about bad books is seeing the lost potential and reverse engineering better stories in my own imagination.

Short list:

I love everything about the dragons of A Song of Ice and Fire. Don’t actually despise the series, a lot of it is very good, it’s just not my cup of tea. But the dragons, man. Nuclear bombs that are your pets. Special but subtle magic bonds. No matter how close those bonds are, no one can ever fully control them. They never stop growing. The implication that they aren’t naturally occurring animals and were in fact created artificially via lost magic. The weird fucked up cultural practices that developed believing it would keep them connected to dragons. The implication that that magic wiped out the empire that created them because they were never satisfied with their already unmatched power.

Bad YA book called Shiver about werewolves whose transformations were tired to temperature as opposed to the moon or their emotions. Shame the book around that interesting concept sucks ass.

The lore of Genshin Impact is super interesting. There used to be tones of gods but most died off in a war with each other. The surviving gods each have a country that they exercise varying degrees of control over, some ruling directly, some indirectly, some just kind of being around. Each country’s culture is shaped by its god’s values and personal hang ups. The gods nuked one atheist country into oblivion. The gods let a handful of designated cool people have elemental powers if they want them bad enough. My personal headcanon is that it’s only socially acceptable to dress differently from the norm when you are a designated cool person, explaining the incredibly drag copy-pasted npcs. Used to play the game but realized I wasn’t having fun, i was doing busywork so i could earn gambling points, so I stopped.

Stephenie Meyer’s The Host is about a race of body-snatching aliens who travel the universe “peacefully” conquering planets and “improving” the cultures of their hosts. One host ends up not being fully dead when a new alien is inserted and so the alien learns that taking people’s free will is bad. Genuinely fantastic sci-fi premise that could have opened the doors for a critique of colonialism and assimilation, or just a fun romp, but because it’s from the author of Twilight all the attention goes towards a love triangle/trapezoid that’s also deeply uncomfortable.

[shinystealingbirb]

hey so I watched the genshin video, the Road not Taken. And I have a lot of thoughts and I think the internet needs to know what my brain has cooked up

For context on the title. The road not taken is a poem by Robert frost. It’s a short poem that describes a critical point in his life as a path, and he’s looking back in his mind, peering as far down one of them as he can- guessing at what and where it may have led to- before taking the one less traveled, and in the end he comes back to who he is at the present, and he is satisfied with his choice.

I’m not sure what to make of that, honestly, comparing this meaning to the animation. I’m still thinking on this one. So I’ll move on.

The animation is so sweet and painful to watch, honestly but why I’m more interested in is the lore implications and background on our abyssal twin.

We learn Dainsleif was a distant companion, that Lumine was around for pivotal moments, probably before khanriah was destroyed, given how easily she walked through mondstadt. I don’t know if a fugitive, a princess of a targeted/collectively bombed and wiped out nation could wander the world without consequences, so I think she traveled and ended up in khanriah last. Like us. Which means all that chaos that seems to have always happened five hundred years ago, Lumine was around for. You know how shit always seems to go down the instant we enter a nation? There’s a chance the same thing happened to her and higher powers simply decided to fuck with us both, but I just think that part is interesting.

Now, the part I really care about. The part where we see lumine and Aether braiding hair and eating food together. It’s sweet, it made me sad and I swear I was crying in public. But that’s not the point.

The point is that Aether, the current-time twin, our MC, is putting flowers in her hair.

Inteyvats, specifically.

Which only grow on, obviously, Teyvat. In khanriah. If I remember right it’s like taking a piece of your home with you.

So when the hell did Aether have time to do that? Didn’t they enter the world and instantly get ganked by some god? That was after all the opening cutscene..

I’m beginning to wonder if they journeyed part of the world together. They arrived in a world up in flames, supposedly, and we’re assuming that’s the destruction of khanriah, right? And then the unknown god yanks away Lumine.

But the timeline isn’t timeline-ing. If khanriah was destroyed then, lumine wouldn’t have become their princess. The flames were of a different civilization then, probably, maybe an earlier one? I’m not entirely clear on the procession of early Teyvat lore, past the dragons. But the way mihoyo has given us the timeline so far is very clearly from Aether’s point of view, and because of that inconsistancy, at least partially jumbled and spotty in several areas. Whose to say we didn’t travel togethe?

Who’s to say we weren’t the ones who put flowers in her hair? In the opening cutscene of the game, lumine has inteyvats in her hair. They’d been in this world for some time already.

What did they see or do that made the unknown god consider them such a threat?

What did we see that we forgot?

Please comment, I’m sorta spitballing and collecting my thoughts at the moment, especially since I haven’t heard anyone talk about lumines flowers and how fucky they make the timeline… if I’m not totally misunderstanding it.

[hobbysognodilibri]

I’m a guitarist and vocalist, though I’ve played Piano, cello, and ukulele in the past.

I do write music occasionally and my first instinct upon finishing the Chasm Questline for Genshin impact was actually to write Xiao a song-

I’ve thought about doing the same for Wuwa since I love the thematic messaging and the slogan of the franchise enough I could make it work.

Not currently planning on pulling Camellya, by that may change. I have three decent teams right now with Jinhsi, Jiyan, and Xiangli Yao so I think I’m good on DPS characters unless they really snag my attention.

Another little lore tidbit that’s been niggling at my brain though is the implications the Rover *was* human??? Or perhaps a demigod? And very much isn’t anymore. Everything from seeing the woman/goddess we see in the opening cutscene inside of the Court of Savante Ruins- to how Shorekeeper talks about us and how our past self acted. It’s just so????

I have so many questions and I’m so excited to see where we go next- not to mention I *need* a lore answer for us switching resonance affinities from Spectro to Havoc and now potentially Aero in the next major update???

Woahh! That's so much stuff it's so cool!!! Also love the idea of writing songs for characters (the Chasm quest was so beautiful, I wish I could experience it again for the first time) or games (bc YESS wuwa seems perfect for this)

Mh yeah I get it, my "approach" to pulling in the three games (genshin, hsr and wuwa) is completely all over the place: I've been playing genshin the longest (roughly 2/3 years) and I have a few well built and balanced teams but I used to be mainly focused on dps, on hsr I have a ton of supports but very few dps (like I have Ratio, I just got Himeko and I decided to pull for Acheron despite wanting to wait for Firefly) while on wuwa my luck is surprisingly good (unlike the other two games) so I somehow managed to get every character except for Chagli (but I'm totally leaning more towards the dps lol). But yeah obv these are game, at the end of the day one should pull for the characters they like

Oh yeah! I love Rover lore!! Or well lack thereof probably lol

But yeah it's so interesting! I can't wait for more I'm always excited for whatever crumb we get

Also no spoiler I promise but please when you have time do the Somnoire quest as always it's so interesting and I'm sure you'll like it! (make sure to talk to the characters before finishing the quest!)

OH ALSO! I want more lore about the Court of Savantae! Just out of curiosity I just looked it up and savantae in latin apparently means "saviours" and that imo offers a cool perspective to what they thought of their own research vs the actual results and how others saw it!

Damn I'm just so curious about Solaris' world building I'm craving lore!!

Oh plus the next region should be inspired by Italy and as an Italian I'm super curious as to how they'll do it! We'll probably get some lore bits that are inspired by our culture and history so maybe my history classes untill now will prove useful to catch these bits

[mrpenguinpants]

let me put EVEN MORE PRESSURE ON YOU! Our second session is TOMORROW NIGHT!!!! And yeah 100% all the times as a player (my DM, before the campaign was scrapped, was a SAINT and I'm so happy he's at my table as a player this time around) was mostly just to see what shenanigans uncovered plots or that I could get away with. I was chaotic in trying to dig up plot (it didn't help it was my second campaign EVER so I was not the best at picking up plot hints that were dropped in front of me) I played two characters in the campaign, a druid and a wizard/rouge. My sweet children, I love them both dearly. The campaign may have ended but they live rent free in my head.

Druid - Uncover a plot hook early as a cat dramatically trying to get attention from a stranger in an alley, sneak past guards without being questioned as a cat mysteriously in an underground villain lair, CONVINCE AN OWLBEAR TO SPARE US???, Strike up a deal with a dracolitch (though I think the DM wanted That outcome, but no one else did), Strike up a deal with MOTHER NATURE, and try to hide a murder by burning down a house (it did not work)

Wiz/Rog - instead of writing out the list, I'll just write to you her introduction to the party: basically my PC steals baguettes from Sargent Armstrong (but french); runs into the group but gets snatched TM by our shifter fighter, interogated, has the best conversation ever ("You know, other people sell food here!" "I am the! Only! Baguette! Person! Here!" "Mmm."), two of the party members are about to pay on her behalf just to no longer be implicated, she casts cause fear on the guy and he sprints (and the party blames the wizard for it), and then SPRINTS INTO A SCHOOL SHE DOES NOT GO TO, GETS FOLLOWED BY WIZARD AND SAID PREVIOUS FIGHTER, DISGUISES HERSELF AS A STUDENT (THE BUFFEST ORC KNOWN TO MANKIND) AND FUCKS WITH THE FIGHTER JUST CAUSE as in the fighter rolled SO LOW

I'd recommend dnd but ONLY like,,, with your friends - new tables/playing with strangers is scary, especially bc the game's... old; I could go off on the racism and sexism baked into 5e and especially the earlier editions for WEEKS asdfghj so you gotta find a table/group that agrees with you, yk? ALSO!!! I saw on twitch/tiktok FOREVER AGO someone actually made a Genshin TTRPG System! Aka you can play DnD in the world of Teyvat as vision holders! There's a few, but the one I saw is "Roll to Ascend" on Youtube

-Lucky

Answering these out of order but how did your second session go if you remember? Aww, I'm sad that the campaign ended but I guess every story needs an ending. I think bittersweet nostalgia is the worst and best feeling ever because you're happy it happened, but sad it ended.

If I ever brush the dust off my Baldurs Gate save file, I will put all my stats into charisma because speech is the most OP thing ever. But I think the funniest part of listening to DND stories is that you take all the crazy events and condense them down. So to me, this sounds like you did all of this in a day rather than several campaign nights (or maybe you did do all of this in a night. That would also make sense).

I have a friend group that plays DND but I don't think I'd "fit in" with them. Not that they are bad at DND or I think they wouldn't accept me, but I feel like I'd need to find the right people to be okay with it. New tables are scary as hell because I have no idea how much rp they do or if I'm doing too much rp. I will check out that youtube channel tho :0 my friend actually recently recommended me a DND podcast that he listens to.

[sandboxscenes]

Betrayal (Pokemon AU)

A/N: This piece in particular is based on my Pokemon AU idea here. This is a different take on a Genshin Impact Pokemon AU and done in conjunction with @xianyoon for their Extreme Bias Game. This piece is darker. It is still safe for work, but the darker items are alluded to. There will be warnings on this particular piece.

Genre: Angst

Cw: Captured and handcuffed, implications of illegal activity, implications of torture.

Summary: As part of the Fontaine Police Force, you were required to go infiltrate the House of Hearth, undercover, in order to get evidence regarding the House's wrongdoings. When you receive word about an illegal transaction that may be occurring at the House of Hearth, you decide to investigate. However, an unexpected person catches you.

Word Count: 1073

"I will protect my family. No matter what."

Lyney's words echo in your head as you notice him stride down the hallway. Quickly, you crouch down and attempt to hide a cabinet. You don't move. You don't breathe. Time seems to stand still for a moment before Lyney's footsteps seem to fade.

Once you could no longer hear Lyney's footsteps, you slowly get out from your hiding spot. That was a mistake. You see Lyney looking straight at you.

You see him slide his hand underneath the brim of his top hat. With an upward flourish, he tosses it in the air. As the hat rotates in the air, Lyney sticks his hand out. A Pokeball comes out of the hat and drops exactly in Lyney's palm.

"Delphox, let's give them a show to remember!"

Lyney hurls the Pokeball towards you. Out of the Pokeball pops out a humanoid-like yellow and orange fox. A Delphox. It lets out a battle cry, and goes into a battle stance. The Delphox's wand is at the ready.

You grip the Pokeball in your hand. A large emperor penguin erupts from the red and white ball. Your Empoleon is the final Pokemon in your party, but the rest of your Pokemon has been able to take care of most of the other House of Hearth members thus far. With this match-up, you reason, you should be able to get past Lyney with no issues. Delphox is fire, and your Empoleon is a water type. Easy.

You catch sight of Lyney's self-satisfied smirk. It irritated you to no end. However, you were wary. His job relies on reading people successfully, and now he was turning that skill on you. His violet eyes were piercing. It's like he knows he knows exactly what you'll do.

There's a sharp gleam in his eyes. "Delphox, let's close the curtain on this battle! Solar Beam!"

A bright beam of light erupts from Delphox's wand and goes in your direction. It was incredibly bright, as if Delphox fired the sun at you. It was bright enough to force you to look away.

When your vision finally comes to, you notice your perspective is lower. You see the large body of your Empoleon lying lifeless on the floor. You attempt to get up, but you notice that you can't move your hands. Your wrists rub against something hard and metallic. You hear the telltale 'click' of handcuffs, tightening around your wrists.

You struggle against the handcuffs in an attempt to free yourself.

"What? How?!" You stare angrily at the magician. "Lyney! Let me go!"

You lay on the ground, bound and helpless, as Lyney makes his way towards you. He leans over. You can see a placid smile on his face that doesn't reach his eyes. But you can also see the deep pools of sadness lying just underneath the surface of his violet eyes.

"I can't. You betrayed us." Lyney's voice held a tinge of sadness in it. "I didn't- I didn't want to believe it either, but Delphox checked your pockets and found handcuffs."

Immediately, your eyes go wide. You attempt to kick your feet and look down at your pants. Now that he mentioned it, you notice how empty your pocket feels. It was sliding over the floor with no issues. If Lyney used his own handcuffs to bind you, you should have been able to feel the weight of the metal in your pocket. You don't.

You hear the Delphox next to you let out a sound. From the Delphox, you turn to look at Lyney, and see him nod.

"You came here," Lyney says slowly, "in order to arrest my family and I, isn't that right?"

You stay silent. Lyney's accusation lingers in the air. You tear your eyes away from him to focus on something else, on anything else. You are unable to look him in the eyes. It hurt too much.

When you started this undercover mission at the direction of your supervisors in the Fontanian police force, they briefed you that they believed the House of Hearth was a criminal organization and you acted accordingly. You thought you were heading into a hardened criminal enterprise. But the day came that you were introduced to the House of Hearth as a recent hire, that wasn't what you found.

The orphanage itself wasn't anything impressive. But due to your mission, you were wary of getting close to anyone. You didn't expect how large of an impact Lyney, Lynette, and Freminet would have on you. They welcomed into the orphanage with open arms. You helped take care of the children alongside them and their Pokemon. They were nothing but nice to you.

So when the message came from your superiors to intercept a suspected illegal transaction occurring tonight, you were conflicted. You didn't know if you could really do this. From what you experienced, they seemed nice enough. You had a hard time believing anything illegal could take place here.

But after thinking on it, you complied. One by one, the children and their Pokemon fell. So too, did Freminet and Lynette. Now, as you stared up at the magician, it dawned on you. You should've been immediately disposed of, but you weren't. A feeling of dread crept up your spine. You did not like where this was going.

"Lyney!" You screamed, "Don't do this! Lyney!"

Over and over, you begged and pleaded. You looked up at Lyney, trying to see if any of your pleas reached him. But all you saw in his eyes was sadness and emptiness.

"Lyney," you said weakly. One last try. One last plea. "Don't do this, please."

Your voice cracked. "Please."

Lyney didn't move. He looked away from you. Then, he got up and turned his back on you.

You heard the loud sound of clacking heels echoing on the floors. Each step caused your heart rate to spike. Whoever was coming towards you, was getting closer and closer.

When the heels stopped, you heard Lyney speak again. This time, his voice was unlike anything you've heard from him before. His voice wasn't as bouncy, lively, or warm. His voice sounded flat, serious, and cold. Hearing Lyney speak like this felt foreign and unnatural.

As you heard Lyney's footsteps fade away in the distance away from you, all you could focus on was the single sentence he uttered.

"They are all yours, 'Father'."

[c6jpg]

4.8 part 4

so i'm not a fan of dumping a bunch of character cameos at the end of an event trend they got going on to begin with but genuinely what the hell was up with that sumeru quest? it was so random??? especially not being voiced it felt like a cheap way to cameo the entire sumeru cast for some unfathomable reason. even if it is foreshadowing some future plot it was way too vague and random to be even remotely enjoyable.

as an aside i'm not one to entertain conspiracy theories but the whole thing about using the names of historical figures with slight tweaks did feel rather... pointed, or at the very least ironic

anyways. ignoring the entire sumeru shenanigans even the random dump of characters in simulanka felt really forced and i absolutely haaaaaate when they do that. as far as simulanka goes they really could have stopped at part 3

mona and albedo/klee were really the only characters where it made sense for them to be there given their close relation with hexenzirkel. but since they were there i do kinda wish we got wanderer actually having a real conversation with mona and fischl to if nothing else give a nod to the unreconciled stars event from 1.1. i also want mona and wanderer to be friends/acquainted, not necessarily in a ship way but more i think they have a funny/interesting dynamic together re: their views on fate.

and we did get the albedo x wanderer interaction but it was pretty anticlimatic lol. well whatever i can live with what they gave us with small durin. but i am intrigued and very 👀👀👀 by the HEAVY implications of a future durin resurrection plot eventually happening which will involve both albedo and wanderer - imo those two have amongst the best lore if not THE best lore in the game so it'll be really fun to see their worlds collide more directly. this was not on my genshin plot bingo card at all but i'm very into it. at this rate though it'll probably happen after snezheneya is released or something lmaooo (and actually thinking about it durin's resurrection would be fitting to happen when shit inevitably hits the fan during/post-snezhneya/at whatever point we need all of teyvat involved and its not just the current nation's problems).

[dragimal]

I think what rly kills me abt Genshin is that it could be really REALLY good, y'know? like the base structure is there for something good: a world of diverse nations with deep, expansive lore, and fun, memorable characters with their own deep lore, and an elemental magic system with great "classpect" potential for fancharacters, and a MASSIVE beautiful map that you could get lost in for hours and still find new puzzles to explore

but at every level Mihoyo just REFUSES to be anything but "safe" about it all, as if they're struggling to make more money

like there are all these themes of challenging oppressive systems and teaming up with others to do the right thing... and yet so many npc enemies are either flat stereotypes of poor/oppressed people, literal red scare propaganda, or fucking 'tribal'-coded magically-cursed civilians that didn't do a damn thing wrong besides be born in the wrong place at the wrong time. the character designs are so 'complex' and overdesigned... to hide the fact that they all use the same few base structures with no body diversity and barely any shape changes to the silhouettes. there are so many characters from so many diverse nations... yet I can count the 'dark-skinned' characters on one hand, and even they are barely more than lightly tanned. Sumeru in particular could have been a beautiful representative of Dendro as a nation, with a real examination of colonialist academia's dismissal of indigenous knowledge, especially of ecology, among other themes.... but instead it's a horrific frankenstein of at least 8 different real-life countries (compared to the other present nations only representing one(1) country) with no real aesthetic/cultural commitment to anything, with lore that makes even my uninformed white ass cringe at the implications

and it kills me because like. god, Genshin is really just an accidental litmus test for popular media, because it's not even trying to hide behind "diversity indexes" like Overwatch or anything. it's so unapologetic abt its own priorities, it ends up feeling like what everything else is trying to hide, y'know?

like it's disgusting to see a game so thoroughly and unabashedly confirm the things that are considered "safe" to a wider audience. racism is considered safe. fatphobia is considered safe. sexism is considered safe. 'loli' pedophilic designs are considered safe. boring half-assed research and design and stories are considered safe.

and it's like. I feel like I have to grit my teeth through so much bullshit in popular media, y'know? obviously the answer is to support more indie works from small-time creators that actually care, which I do. but like, we shouldn't have to ignore most bigger projects, right? we shouldn't have to, and yet here we are

[stray-tori]

Genshin Impact - Wanderer Interlude & the implications of Irminsul / Fate (spoilers)

idk if i'm just reading into it but the interlude actually sets up themes of justice due to discussions on how altering irminsul can lead to questions of responsibility.

Was the world actually changed? Did things not happen in the way they "originally" did? Or... Are everyone's memories and the current state of books etc. simply altered to reflect the ""change""? (i.e. is it a butterfly effect or merely adjustment of the now?)

The entire time I tried to figure out what Genshin was going for here in regards to that (to me significant) distinction in how Irminsul alteration actually plays out... until at the end, the game basically called me out for that, in the form of the "???" voice stating that it does not matter because the result (a broken vase, dead people) stay the same.

In essence, I can agree with that stance. If the vase is broken, there's no real point in finding out who did it because it doesn't change that it's broken. It will have to be cleaned up either way.

The reasons you'd have for finding out who did it would be to a) make them clean it up or b) lock them up so they don't break other vases.

This is where the distinction of the two ways Irminsul Alteration could function matters to me.

If everything is predetermined, there's no point to finding the criminal. The current vase was meant to break either way, so even if the breaker did not exist, it would still be broken and would still have to be cleaned up. A future vase that is meant to be broken, will break; whether or not you lock them up or not.

If the memory or state of the world merely changes to reflect the ""fake"" history, then there is technically still some value in finding the "truth", because who-ever Irminsul assigned to the act to make up for the gaps in history, would be unfairly believed to have done it by the entire world.

This would then also call into question the theme of "fate" a bit, because I can see why changing the past would not change anything major. Was the vase's fate always to be broken? Or is that its unchangeable fate simply because it was already broken and that cannot be altered because it's in the past? Because then, trying to prevent future vase breaks actually DOES have meaning.

I just think this entire theme is fascinating considering the next region is Fontaine -- how will these themes fare under the context of concepts like Justice?

Justice is meaningless when criminals cannot be held accountable for their crimes. A murderer could turn around and say "their fate was to die! I was simply the way over which it happened".

Personally, I hope altering Irminsul only affects the "now" or the collective perception of the "past" instead of changing the past and then correcting itself so that nothing really changes anyway.

My reasoning is that that leaves room for changing fate to still be relevant in the sense of Khaenri'ah (since it is in the past), but seems to me to make the traveler's recent role as a "witness" or "record-keeper" make more sense?

There isn't much value of a person who knows the "truth" if the "truth" is actually not accurate anymore. it's like someone saying "this wall is blue" and then someone travels back in time and paints it violet. To the people, there is not much value in knowing that if the past changed completely. However, if the wall was now painted violet and everyone is made to believe it was always violet, even when it wasn't, the person who knows the truth has a lot more value to any happenings surrounding this.

But considering the themes of loops, with the twin implied to have done the same journey as us despite lack of people knowing about them; I fear that it's just as likely to go with the alteration of the past itself.

I suppose we shall see...

[apompkwrites]

Hi! I love your writing, mostly the streamer au. Wanted to ask if you'll write about Xiao's past and his friends sometimes? Hope you're having a nice day/night!

reader impact || alatus origins

series masterlist characters: xiao, indarias, bonanus, menogias, bosacius genre: angst summary: alatus, otherwise known as xiao, was not originally an independent streamer. contains: implications of misogyny, breakdowns, mental health, i put a lot of effort into this angst man,,, notes: asjdkash i'm so glad you asked!!! i've been wanting to write about these guys for a bit now :D by the way, I'm very tempted to do a thing but we'll see... it should be 5WIRL related because heizou has joined the anemo boys in having me in a chokehold. also i'm probably gonna change up names when i talk about other characters in the genshin universe so it doesn't get confused with the girl counterparts in reader impact??

xiao was a part of a streaming group, as i have said plenty of times before. however, not many people know the details about this era of his career simply because their group was small in terms of popularity.

the group never really cared for fame when they got together. in fact, they were all just friends from school, some spanning from high school, others from college, who wanted to play games together.

for xiao's fans who had been with him since the beginning, they remember the former four members of the streaming group all too well. and, much to the surprise of outside viewers, they don't openly talk about them with respect to xiao and the streamers they watched grow and leave.

indarias

the first to leave the group was indarias, known as the streamer musatas. she was known for being one of the most expressive streamers, other than bosacius. a lot of people came to her streams to match her energy, which was loud and upbeat.

she was also very competitive. when playing she often butted heads with bosacius while playing pvp games. if you were watching the others' (bonanus, menogias, and xiao) streams, you could hear them yelling at each other in the background.

she was more into playing multiplayer games on her streams. she would play a lot of fps, too. so expect a lot of screaming on her end.

as for her leaving, there was little indication on her part. she seemed to be her usual happy-go-lucky self on stream. until, one day, she stopped streaming. that wouldn't have been bad on its own but she stopped streaming for weeks on end.

her viewers would go into the others' chats and ask about her. no one really said anything. the closest they got to an answer was from bosacius. he only replied with a "she's going through some things" once and that was it.

the reason why no one really answered was both because a) they respect their friend's privacy, and b) they didn't know what was happening with indarias.

she didn't express her problems that often. she prided herself in being a "strong, independent woman" as she loved to say. because of this, she told herself it was her problem to deal with.

as a woman in the streaming industry, she had her fair share of hate. at the beginning, she pulled through. honestly, a lot of it was in her chat and most of the time, her friends would sort through messages and help take care of them. but, because she was a relatively small streamer, the hate seemed so much bigger.

when people started trying to message her privately, that was when she couldn't handle it. their words scared her and not just for her own wellbeing. she was scared that they would start targeting her friends, especially bonanus.

the only way she figured she could stop it was to leave. she disappeared from the internet entirely. she told her friends that some things had come up at home and moved out a few days later.

she never really said goodbye. she just sort of left, both social media and the streaming house.

bonanus

one of the second streamers to leave was bonanus, known as chizapus online. she was soft-spoken and people loved her for her sweet demeanor.

she liked story-based games more than anything. it was something that her and menogias would bond over. in fact, they often matched their schedules to play the same story games and then discuss them with each other, both in private and on stream.

she was oddly skilled in fps games, though. she actually asked indarias to help her after their initial group stream because she didn't want to embarrass herself (again). she never plays those games on stream, though. she only practiced in her own time.

it was only after that indarias officially left that bonanus started pulling away too. it killed her to not know why indarias left. and because of that confusion and grief, she wasn't in the right mindset most of the time.

and because of that, she ended up blowing up on the person she was closest to (after indarias).

menogias had good intentions, really. its just... his attitude didn't leave a good impression on bonanus during that time. her panic combined with her view on menogias' intentions prompted her to breakdown. that and the mounds of hate that moved from indarias to her.

she left a few weeks after her initial argument with menogias.

menogias

another of the second streamers to leave was menogias, known as kapisas. out of all of the streamers, he was the most put together and sophisticated. the viewers would often joke that he was a single father taking care of his four children. it didn't help the fact that he would often pop into everyone else's streams to give them food and water and gifts.

like bonanus, he was into story based games. however, he was more into the games that didn't flat out tell a story. he liked the air of mystery a lot of games had that forced him to dig into the details to put together the story.

he did a lot of chatting streams too. he liked to sit back and talk to his viewers, catching them up on everyday things. most of the stories about the streaming group would come from him.

he was also the most active mod in his friends' chats. he usually kept a watchful eye over the messages coming through, especially in indarias and bonanus' chats. he would often talk about how disgusted he was that his dear friends went through something like that.

he had some theories on why indarias left. he didn't just chalk it up to a home emergency because she had plenty of those when they were in school. he could only assume the hate he saw being written in chat was a small percentage of what was actually happening.

he aimed to talk to bonanus after indarias left. he feared that the same thing would happen to her. the only issue was that menogias is known for being more on the stoic side. he has his moments but when it comes to his friends, he doesn't joke around.

with bonanus already panicking over indarias' sudden departure, she ended up pushing blame onto menogias for not being supportive. she had no real point to her argument, though. it was more of a panicked way of placing blame because she had no other answer.

normally menogias would understand this. but the last words bonanus said to him before storming out was "you don't care enough about us and that's why she left."

the sheer audacity, he thought, she has to say that he doesn't care about them? his friends that he has been with since his school days. she has the audacity to say he doesn't care about them?!

in hindsight, he shouldn't have let the words affect him. he should have taken time to understand that she didn't mean it.

but he didn't. he left around the same time that bonanus left.

bosacius

bosacius was the last to leave, known as vritras. much like indarias, he was the bubbly, happy-go-lucky streamer. they often butted heads because of their competitiveness, but that was only during pvp games.

the two actually got along really well. on the rare occasions he would play more low-key games, it was often two-player co-ops. he played a lot with indarias but also with xiao. he was either extremely loud because he was bickering with indarias about the best way to play or he was extremely loud because he was trying to get xiao to talk more.

when the group began to fall apart, he tried not to let it get to him. all he could do was keep up morale and do his best to keep the others from leaving.

he saw how good that got him. indarias left with nothing more than a brief (and seemingly fake) explanation. bonanus and menogias, the two most sophisticated people in the group, had an argument that ended in days of silence before they left. and all that left was bosacius and xiao.

the house was too quiet now. bosacius found himself trying to break that whenever he met up with xiao in the living room. it worked for a bit. those months where they had no word on their former friends' statuses were somewhat filled by bosacius' attempts at keeping up optimism and xiao's attempts at taking care of both of them.

it wasn't until those months caught up to them that bosacius found himself breaking down. it wasn't that xiao forced him to do what he did over those few months. in fact, xiao tried to push him to take a break, that he was fine with the silence for a few weeks as long as bosacius took a mental health break.

but he didn't.

his coping mechanism of putting on a face for his last friend turned on him. he found himself spiraling until he couldn't handle it anymore. however, he knew he couldn't just up and leave. he saw how his other friends' departures slowly ate away at xiao.

he saw how xiao played more fps games in honor of indarias when she first left and how he berated his chat for making fun of anyone more than he did before.

he saw how xiao played more story based games when bonanus left and how he hated seeing two people fight and spew hateful words in the heat of the moment.

he saw how he neglected to take care of himself in favor of taking care of bosacius after menogias left and how he urged his chat to not let a few words deter them.

so, he talked to xiao the night before he left. he talked to him about everything that happened leading up to that very moment.

he begged and pleaded for xiao not to blame himself. he promised he would continue to watch him and he was sure that the others had done the same.

with his final goodbyes and pleas, he left the next day.

xiao

he was a lot more lively before. when that house was filled to the brim with laughter and cheer, he was happier. he was ecstatic that he was able to play games with his friends.

and then it all fell apart. he watched as his safe haven crumbled before his very eyes. he can still see them sometimes in his dreams. he would relive the good days at the beginning.

he would see him entering high school with bosacius, his friend's arm thrown over his shoulders as he dragged him to another game to cheer on their school.

he would see him entering college and meeting indarias for the first time, groaning at the idea of dealing with two eccentric and boisterous individuals for the entirety of his school year.

he would see him meeting menogias in the library one night, remembering him from one of his classes and continuing to study with him until the library staff kicked them out.

he would see him meeting bonanus through menogias and indarias, who he didn't even know knew each other, bonanus' quiet demeanor persisting throughout the entirety of their friendship.

near the end, however, he would witness their breakdowns all over again. his friends would drift apart and he would be left all alone, in the home he bought with them.

he wouldn't move out of that house. he didn't think he would ever share it again.

he would make do with you, though, your presence persistent and pulling him out of his consistent spirals of depression despite the fact that you weren't real.

[celestialarchon]

400+ Followers Celebration!

various genshin impact x f!reader

warnings: fluff/crack/NSFW implications, jokes and innuendos. reverse Isekai storyline and a LOT of attention on reader. SPOILERS FOR IN GAME. Archon spoilers!

As much as you tried, connecting and staying in reality was too hard. It was always the same outcome, finding yourself whisked away to another fantasy land through media. Normally your obsessions didn’t last long, but one game had completely sucked you in. Maybe it was the stress of the nightmare year 2020 or maybe it was the fact that Genshin Impact was everything you loved and more, but you couldn’t get enough. It was getting out of hand as even your roommates had began to play because of the way you romanticized the game. Acquiring most of the five star characters, building several strong teams, and finishing almost all the quests in roughly 5 months.

As an insomniac, it was easy to grind through the game until the sun came up. Sometimes you wondered if it was strange that an adult would be so enamored with a game but shrugged it off. It’d been a hellish year, you deserved to treat yourself.

Yet another night spent entirely on the dreamy land of Teyvat. You yawned and stretched as the sun peaked through the blinds and cursed yourself for not noticing the passing time. Removing your head set, you yawned again, feeling a wave of drowsiness wash over you. It was strange, you’d only been up one night and you were already so tired. Your home was quiet, all the roommates sound asleep as you crept into your bed under the covers. The stuffie you adored so much was soon in your arms as you drifted off, wishing to dream of traveling the world of Teyvat.

An extremely loud crashing sound woke you from your deep sleep. Instinctively you shot up, your arm moved on its own aiming for the space around you and swinging quickly and forcefully. Your fist made contact with something and you shrieked as the strange shadow crumpled. You flew out of your bed and away from the safety of your covers, grasping for the light switch.

Your panicked screeches only grew louder as the figure on the floor groaned and stood upright, still fumbling for the lights. Fingertips finally brushed the switch on the wall and you flipped the lights on. The sudden brightness blinded you for a minute and the mystery person as well. It hit you how stupid it was to turn on the lights in your room as soon as your eyes adjusted. Adrenaline was pumping through your veins as you rushed to the door. You could hear heavy footsteps from the other room. Other people were home you needed to get to them.

“Shiiiiit,” The strange person groaned again, “I drank too much.”

The voice was familiar and made you freeze for a moment. Mentally slapping yourself you darted out of your room but ran straight into a wall. Well, that’s what it felt like, but there wasn’t a wall outside your door. The force of the collision knocked you on your ass and you yelped as you hit the floor.

“Oh? What’s this?” The supposed wall turned to look at you, eyebrows arched as he stared down at you.

Your jaw nearly hit the floor as you looked up at the familiar man. That smooth voice, the long hair, the eyepatch. This had to be some sort of weird dream. No matter how hard you tried to move, your body wouldn’t obey. You heard steps from behind you and glanced back to see another Mondstadt troublemaker. A disgruntled anemo archon was slowly approaching you.

“Ehe, fuck, she hit me hard.” Venti giggled nervously.

“Poor thing,” Kaeya held his hand out to you, “Did the mean little twink scare you?”

The room was spinning, so you took the cryo pirate’s hand. Your jaw was probably still on the floor. His grip was strong and cool, it was bringing you back down to the reality of the situation you were in. Oh, the irony. You were not dreaming. Awestruck, you peered behind Kaeya into your living room to see even more Genshin characters just vibing. The esteemed geo archon was drinking from your favorite mug, two troublesome harbingers bickered in the corner of the room, a certain librarian was flipping through your books, both travelers were attempting to learn how to play uno. It was unreal. A pirate was flirting with a silver haired beauty.There was an astrologist examining your fish tank, an alchemist and a child terrorist asleep on your floor, and a fucking adeptus perched on your couch like a gargoyle.

Your roommates were nowhere in sight and your home was crowded by your fictional lovers. The absolute chaos of it all sent you over the edge. High pitched, clearly unstable laughter erupted from you. What else could you do? Cry? That wouldn’t change anything. All eyes shifted to you as you leaned on the wall, clutching your abdomen and giggling like a madwoman. Kaeya shifted away from you, allowing the others to get a good look at you.

Finally composing yourself, you stood up straight and introduced yourself, “Hello, why are you invading my home?”

“Hey girlie! I’m Childe,” The cheery harbinger nearly skipped up to you shaking your hand, “but you can call me daddy.”

Your face reddened at his bold introduction but you clicked your tongue avoiding his eyes.

“Hello, cutie. I’m Lisa.”

“Albedo, and this is Klee.”

“I tend to go by Zhongli.”

“Beidou! The lovely lady by my side is Ningguang.”

“Adeptus Xiao.”

They all introduced themselves so politely, you almost felt bad for acting a bit crazy. However, that feeling was quickly swept away by Kaeya and his sharp tongue.

“Kaeya, but I believe you already know that,” he smirked at you, “May I ask why you aren’t wearing any pants?”

“Oi, what?” You looked down and gasped.

Venti’s drunk ass had sent you into fight and flight mode so you had forgotten all about your night time attire. You were in an oversized Genshin Impact shirt without any pants on. Shoving Venti out of your way, you rushed to your room to dig for pants. Oh, how you wished you hadn’t forgotten about laundry. You hastily grabbed a pair of shorts that really didn’t do much except cover your underwear.

“I have shorts on now. You just can’t tell because of my shirt.” You declared entering the living room.

Some of the more promiscuous characters giggled at your embarrassment while Zhongli facepalmed and the most serious of them all, Scaramouche and Xiao, simply scowled. You sat on the end of your couch furthest from everybody else, nervous. Nobody had answered your earlier question. Apparently your discomfort was lost on the Adeptus Xiao, or he just didn’t care. He was in front of you in a flash, pinching your face and glaring at you.

“Why did you call us here you foolish mortal?” His tone was more annoyed than murderous.

Zhongli slapped Xiao’s hands away from your face and sat down next to you, “Be nice. She doesn’t know either.”

You nodded at this, and the room erupted in murmurs. Zhongli slipped his arm around you, patting your shoulder sympathetically. Lumine tossed the Uno cards down and glided to you, taking strands of your hair into her hands and beginning to play with it. Perhaps it’s because you played as both the travelers but the three of you seemed to silently click. Scaramouche and Childe began to argue again about something silly. Out of the corner of your eye you saw a certain bard and the charming Sir Kaeya raiding your liquor cabinet.

It was too overwhelming to argue. Lumine took her time playing with your hair while the others attempted to figure out how to go back to their own world. Xiao crept closer to you, truly like a cat. Beidou and Ningguang fawned over you and invited you into their relationship several times. You politely declined, knowing they’d have to go back to their world. It was disappointing and a bit frustrating.

Your wish came true but it was too good to be true. Albedo seemed to notice your silence. He gently maneuvered his adorable little sister off of him and approached you. His eyes were filled with curiosity, your silence only made his thoughts wander further.

“Can I experiment on you?” Albedo was blunt.

“Huh?” You blinked, unsure if you heard him correctly.

“I’m not sure if that was brave or stupid,” Childe snickered, “Has he always been this bold?”

“Tch,” Scaramouche rolled his eyes, “Thats a terrible pick up line, mad scientist.”

“Leave my cutie alone!” Lisa yanked Albedo away from you defensively.

The room was filled with protest at Lisa’s words. Zhongli merely sighed and pulled you closer. Venti’s dumb ass was floating around your living room hiccuping. Xiao was wedging himself between you and the arm of the couch. It was insane. Beidou and Ningguang noticed the two Liyue men snuggling up to you and marched over to the three of you.

Ningguang tried to pull you away from them while Beidou aggressively smacked at Xiao. Xiao was hissing at the beautiful captain and Zhongli was attempting to intervene. You shoved them out of your way and stood up, panicked by the attention. Lisa caught you as you tripped over your own feet but landed face first into her chest. She stroked your hair but was interrupted by Albedo grabbing your wrist and mumbling about experiments. The single moment Childe and Scaramouche got along was to pull you from Albedo but it became a quick tug of war over you.

Somehow, Klee was still asleep and Kaeya was just watching all of it go down.

“Cheeeeeeeeers, bitch bitches,” The Knight slurred.

“Enough.” Lumine and Aether both intervened.

Aether held his hand out to you, “You don’t have to pick now, but please say you’ll come with us?”

“You belong in Teyvat,” Lumine smiled at you warmly.

“So,” Aether continued “What do you say, outlander?”

All eyes were on you as the words left Aether’s lips. What would you do?

[dreampearls]

Sorry i just need a place to comprehensively complain about how collei was handled

okay lets start off with how everyone who had eleazar for the past however many years all of a sudden was magic'd into able-bodied capability overnight. its not only a blatantly ableist trope with the implication that disability must always be cured, but also just really bad writing continuity wise when you look at how the withering zones are somehow still around despite being of the same origin as eleazar

collei's presence in the archon quest was reduced to that of a mouthpiece for introducing said chronic illness, which consistently left her out of the actual plot as a consequence. her illness restricted her actions beyond a reasonable level & just left me feeling like they used it primarily as an excuse to have One Less Character to deal with

the thing that annoys me so much is that her illness becomes the one thing defining her character. her case of eleazar is meant to be a tragedy that we sympathize with and therefore want to cure; and even then our sympathies aren't actually meant to be with Her because she's used as a setup/introduction for Dunyarzad. AND I LIKE DUNYARZAD i do think she narratively brings (*has the potential to bring, since genshin wouldn't actually develop this) a really different & interesting perspective on how illness/disability is affected by socioeconomic factors. but it also annoys me to no end that You Have A Playable Character With Eleazar Right Here and you didn't do Anything with her

as a character that's long been anticipated and has had a very troubled history with the archons/gods (literally was injected with the essence of a dead god and will always haunted by its ghost) I am So Upset that this was never touched upon or mentioned at all in the archon quest. the climax of the sumeru plotline was literally about the arrogance of humanity trying to attain divinity through the creation of a false god; something that was absolutely absolutely 100% relevant to collei as the subject of a similar experiment. her hesitance towards the divine (that was once a burning hatred that could very well be reignited) would have contrasted So Well with scaramouche's desperate attempt to reclaim divinity for himself. theyre such interesting foils but absolutely nothing was done with them!!

this one's a little bit more of a personal complaint but i really really really would have loved to see literally any modicum of collei's personality from the webtoon translated into the game. i understand her personality is different now because shes a character entirely about healing & moving on but. i miss snarky little 12 year old collei. i think she should get to be a little cold and weird and generally offputting still and it doesnt have to interfere with her growth at all. because as it stands the way she's written in the game makes her feel overly sanitized and forcefully palatable . if that makes any sense at all

[multitrackdrifting]

my thoughts on how AI Art is bad

you could write thousands of words about parameter refinement through AI Art, but it will never be famous for anything but destroying art hosting websites, selling commissions generated via AI & becoming the next scourge after NFT art theft

i don't care about the potential good uses of it (e.g. generate an icon for a dnd campaign nobody but you and your friends will see), if the line has already been crossed and no implementation of ethics guidelines or better programming is going to stop the scourge. for every one person looking to create something interesting and meaningful with ai are 99 opportunities looking to profit from it whether they sell commissions that they didn't draw, they sell piecemeal access to the generators or even more obviously they create NFTs with AI art trained on someone's style and then profit from it.

i'm not intrigued by first year philosophy student arguments about whether its real art or whatever the fuck, the negative implications are already observed (see: deviantart, twitter and pixiv being overrun by novelAI). shit is ass because it relies on the users to be honourable and ethical in their usage, because of how open-ended the technology often is and the idea couldn't be any clearer than that. and for some people, as long as they can produce a funny or novel outcome it's fine. i thought the initial dall-e stuff was funny cause you could render random characters into an elder scrolls game, but this latest shit is just so slimy with how it can accurately replicate people's artstyles against their wishes. its how they get you, once the novelty wears off, you become cognizant of jsut how dangerous the technology is - it wont replace traditional or digital art as a whole, but it cheapens the medium tremendously by drowning out people that would already struggle to be visible in the current art landscape with "here's this genshin character i like being put in every position xD generated by my AI"

the volume of artworks flooding pixiv and deviant art is kinda funny, and god help you if you're training your skills only to have your posts buried by a shit load of spam uploads.

[rainbowloliofjustice]

I used to be annoyed by sub only elitists and defended dubs. Until the Genshin drama. This one translation problem caused a bunch of antis to viciously attack a certain ship. In the Chinese version they were called sworn brothers. Its by my knowledge a term to describe two guys in a very close relationship. Sometimes it can be used but not always be a code to get past censors to make a gay couple. However in the bloody English dub it was mistranslated as adopted. This has caused a massive war. The bad news unless you know Chinese you're staring at that mistranslated mess. You can't slap on a sub. Also the game company has a history of making canon lgbt couples so if this specific ship becomes canon it might but idk that dub translator needs to be fired for screwing up that badly.

Yeah I used to not really care about or have an issue with dubs until the last few years where it seems like companies are trying to take advantage of the-- in short-- privilege they've been given to translate something for a mass audience... You have a job to actually be faithful and even though some terms (such as tsundere, senpai, kohai, etc.) don't have direct or easily useable english translations, sometimes the best way to be faithful is to just use those terms.

Anime is relatively mainstream now, unless you are literally on baby's first anime and have literally never seen one before, most people will know what tsundere, senpai, kohai, etc. mean and no one is gunna think the team is Ultra Weeb (TM) for using them in a dub or translation and when it comes to using shorthand like "sus" such as in Nagatoro, it is faithful technically but their usage of it is a little clumsy and comes as rather awkward when spoken and it comes off as if the translators/subbers haven't actually heard it being used in conversation regularly.

But as far as other things such as the Dragon Maid, prison school, etc. and other dubbing controversies and how people who are in charge of doing localizations act towards the fans for criticizing their choice or just outright being on power trips... It makes it hard to wonder whether some changes, even if small, are made in good faith. It's getting hard to actually trust localizers and translators when some of them take criticize of a translation personally and/or insult the fans for criticizing it... Or just go on some "I'm in control of anime now" power trip.

And in cases like Genshin, "sworn bothers" can also basically be brothers in arms/war. Like military bros. There were other ways they could have translated it and it sounds like they just choose the easiest one without thinking of the implications of calling two characters "adopted brothers" when there is no adoption. I've never heard anyone use "adopted brothers" as a way of referring to someone they have a close bond too. We're "like brothers", "brothers in arms", "brothers in war", etc. have all been used and would have just been better translations for it as opposed to adopted.

And even though I would say that it isn't the translators/localizer's fault that the fans are acting this batshit fucking crazy, I don't know how in this day and age a creator or someone who has high engagement with fandom(s) doesn't know that some people are fucking batshit insane. Or just can't say something simple like "Don't tag me in porn of x character" as opposed to "if you make porn of x character you're a pedophile." and when they get criticism for saying the second, they try to backpedal and say they only meant the first... If you meant "don't tag me in porn/nsfw" then just say that.

But all in all yeah I agree... I'm still not a huge fan of the Sub Elitists (TM) but jesus christ localization teams are really going at it to prove the points of the sub elitists. If the ship ends up being canon, the localization team may have fucked up the english dub or the chances of it being actually canon in english and they have to pull some censorship BS or backpedal in order to stop the backlash of "Adopted brothers in love with each other"