#but the Abyss? that's what did it?

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

Ooh, the most recent chapter of your Genshin Fic was so...

I think it addressed a lot of the same grievances more than a few players have themselves, the need to blame most of the people of Teyvat for the crime of being overseen by the Archons when most of them are unlikely to even know there should be a list of crimes tacked onto their names, the need to dodge all the questions the Traveler likely has, not even a quiet acknowledgement that the other is okay in their first meeting...

Honestly, in true sibling fashion, there should have been an option to SHAKE the Abyss Sibling by the shoulders, if not a slight want to punch them, during Bedtime Story.

I could be wrong in my analysis, but it was nice to see it articulated so well! I really liked the chapter. Thank you for creating it and sharing it!

While I was definitely airing some personal grievances of my own, I did want to make it a bit clear in the chapter that the Traveler is aware that they're not thinking rationally and knows that they might be wrong about some of the conclusions they came to, but, based on what they've seen so far, what their sibling has said so far, what Dain has said so far, and what others have said about Dain so far, it's really hard to see things the way the Abyss Sibling is painting for them.

The Dain thing really rubbed me wrong to find out the person the Abyss Sibling is working with is Dain's older brother who betrayed his own people and is the one who stood by while they suffered... but the abyss Sibling is blaming Dain... Couldn't even spare a word of greeting and a question about how their long-lost twin is doing before they go on to whine about Dain's presence.

The more the story is revealed, the less I'm interested in the Traveler's sibling's journey and reasoning.

It just feels so weird that they were summoned to this place by these people they don't know, which is actually confirmed in the story, and the Abyss Sibling is willing to ignore their twin for centuries for the sake to these people they don't know. The Abyss Mage saying, 'your homeland' still sounds nonsensical every time I think about it, because it's not their home. It still makes no sense at all to be saying that.

Finally, I don't like this narrative many fans on Twitter have spun where the Abyss Sibling has more of a right to mourn Khaenri'ah than Dain does when, objectively, Dain did more for those people and the sibling. The Abyss Sibling sided with the guy who helped expose the country to the Abyss and got them the wrong kind of attention from Celestia for it but refuses to acknowledge that for what it is. I don't like that.

[tianlavellan]

I will find you

Blondie, I thought you should hear this from me before you hear it somewhere else. Something happened at Adamant. The Inquisitor and a group of their people fell through a rift – from what I understand, it took them to the Fade, physically. Shouldn't be possible, should it? Anyway. Doesn't matter. The point is, Hawke was with them. He didn't make it back. The Inquisitor says he stayed behind to buy them the time they needed to make it out. I'm sorry. Varric Don't do anything stupid.

[starry-bi-sky]

mmmmmm read a disciple shen yuan/shizun luo binghe fanfic about two days ago where the first chapter was the Immortal Conference arc, and SQQ was the one who had to be pushed into the abyss (he was still the villain) except Luo Binghe was refusing and was like, lowkey losing his mind about SQQ being so close to the edge. SQQ ended up having to be the one to fall in himself because of the system's punishment system. The rest of the fic is leading up to that moment. But like, MMM i've been obsessively thinking about that first chapter for DAYS ever since.

now i've been in svsss for a grand total of *checks watch* a week. but god obsessed with that. I want to write/read a fic where disciple SQQ goes a little nuts down there. Like keep all of the things that make SQQ, SQQ, but just. Throw in a little bit more trauma in there. A little bit of a mental break. Let him go a little nuts as a treat. Just a tad unhinged. I wanna see him go, just a little, "god fuck it, i've tried so hard to change this shitty story's outcome and it feels like everything i've done has been for nothing. I'm going to die in this world no matter what I do, I've been doomed from the start, so might as well die the way I want to." and he just, breaks a little! Under all the stress.

He still retains the traits that makes shen yuan, shen yuan, like his overwhelming kindness. But he's just! yk. A little less patient. Paranoid. Jumpy. Colder. A little more aloof and closed off. A little more Shen Jiu. He's no asshole child abuser, but he was a Number One Hater in his past life and he's leaning into that old habit a little more now.

(On a totally coincidental not-at-all related note, there's not enough SJ-and-SY-are-the-same-people fics out there that i've found. This is totally unrelated...)

The Endless Abyss turns the mind into an over-sharpened blade, and SQQ is both fascinated and perhaps a little excited to explore a place that doesn't have a lot of info on it in the mortal realm, but still terrified out of his mind. And he's no Luo Binghe, he doesn't have the sheer brute strength and power to just bulldoze his way through, so he has to be a lot more sneaky and cunning if he wants to survive.

The fic itself role-swapped LBH and SQQ so that SQQ was the half-demon (which lowkey fucks) and LBH the human, but I'm equally-if-not-more obsessed with the idea that LBH remains the half-heavenly demon and SQQ the human. If only because I keep thinking about SQQ befriending some demons (particularly and specifically a group of succubi) and they grow very attached to this Human Cultivator so through magic plot stuff they create some kind of seal/illusion/talisman that makes SQQ appear as a demon because a human cultivator in the endless abyss may as well be the equivalent of putting a giant neon target on your back.

And iirc Shen Jiu was taught demonic cultivation by that one guy(?? i've only been here a week so im not caught up in ALL of the lore yet) so that could totally happen here.

(On the other end of the realms, poor Shizun Luo Binghe is just. losing his fucking mind over losing his most precious and beloved disciple. About .5 seconds from burning down the peaks himself. somebody sedate him.)

The Endless Abyss sucks and SQQ is having a really terrible time and can feel himself going lowkey mad, but also holy shit look at all this WORLD-BUILDING. look at all this flora and fauna, and oh if he had the equipment for it he'd be writing all of this down. ALL OF IT. He was kinda-sorta-already planning on never leaving the Abyss as some sort of fucked up self-exile and self-preservation thing, but now he might? actually just?? never leave if he can help it, like he lowkey likes it down here.

anyways the next time anyone ever sees SQQ again he's got hair so long its almost touching the ground and he's either in rags and half-feral or he's been completely dolled up by his adoptive succubi sisters and still about three seconds from biting anyone who tries to touch him. (he's also lowkey trying to book it back down to the abyss even if he has desperately missed all of his friends and shizun)

[conqueenror]

I love Mondstadt sm, and it's not because it is the "home region", but because it is a mysterious and sometimes even creepy region when you dig a little bit further

[ministarfruit]

bitter tea 🍵

[melina-mellow]

The. Abyss. Sibling. Had. Nothing. To. Do. With. What. Happened. In. Nalan!

The Abyss Order is different from the Abyss as an invasive entity that's constantly trying to corrupt Teyvat.

The Abyss Order is made of Khaenri'ahn survivors and some abyssal creatures that have sworn themselves to their cause,.... Y'all think an organization that suffered had their nation being destroyed by the Abyss, would try to create the Cataclysm 2.0 in Natlan??

Y'all don't think that Dain's greasy, decrepit ass wouldn't show up in Natlan if this had anything to do with the Abyss Order??????

Nope! Whatever happened in Natlan, and their loss of innocent lives were a result of the Abyss itself.

[kradogsrats]

Revisiting the Arc 2 Opening

So particularly @raayllum had done some detailed analysis and predictions based on the comparison of Viren and Callum's variant arc 2 openings, but I want to return in the post-s6 space now that we have Claudia's opening as a third point of comparison because that addition has an impact on how the original two relate to one another and what each one is saying.

The basic sequence of each opening is the same: from the initial star-map zoom (associated with destiny/time-blind vision of future events) the camera circles the principal character, placed at the celestial Sea of the Castout, as they turn to stone. Aaravos's giant hand swoops down and plucks up the statue, now contextualized by size as a pawn or other game piece, to admire from within his prison with a satisfied smile.

The most important point to understand about this sequence is that Aaravos doesn't personally turn Viren, Callum, and Claudia to stone, but is able to capture and manipulate them as pawns because of it:

This doesn't seem like much of a distinction at all, particularly because the petrification that results in Aaravos's satisfied claim on each mage is a representation of dark magic, which is... what allows Aaravos to influence/control those who resort to using it.

We get the direct link between the heart, dark magic, and Aaravos's influence/control explicitly spelled out by s6, and (as many noticed before)... go figure, in all three openings the corruption petrification begins at the heart.

Now, Callum is actually the only one who knows explicitly about the connection between dark magic and influence/control by Aaravos. Viren has sort of intuited it by the end of s5, in that we can see by portions of his dream that he's aware on at least a subconscious level that he was not in his right mind during at least the latter half of s3. This is why the distinction between the petrification being a factor allowing Aaravos's control, rather than an effect of it, is important—the conflicts and dynamics being represented are more complex than that. For example: Viren's opening, it turns out, isn't about Aaravos at all.

That's a Reach

When the primary arc 2 opening, featuring Viren, was revealed as part of the lead-up to the s4 release, there was a decent amount of speculation as to what it meant—the connection with Avizandum's death was recognized immediately, but what did that signify? Would there be further-reaching direct consequences of Viren's involvement and the archdragon-killing spell? Would Avizandum himself somehow have expanded significance? What is Viren reaching for: Aaravos, redemption, another chance at life?

Mostly, it set the tone for s4 and arc 2 in general, particularly regarding Viren's character arc, with strong mood and themes of helplessness, the past, regret and consequences, cyclic harm, and (of course) death. Not even to mention the looming presence of Aaravos and his relationship with Viren as his pawn. It was a vibe.

It wasn't until after s5 and/or s6 that the opening came into full context: Avizandum, in his final moments, turns his back on the battle with Harrow—the cycle of violence that he, himself, has contributed to perpetuating—and reaches for the child he will now be unable to protect from that violence.

Viren, as it turns out, does the exact same, as we see explicitly in s5 and continued implicitly in s6. Like Avizandum, he reaches for his children, unable to save them from the damage he has already done—all of it through dark magic.

On its own, it's an elegant implementation of the parallels TDP is so fond of to demonstrate that both sides of this long-time conflict have inflicted harm on each other and themselves in very similar ways for generations. Even at the time of s4, however, we had Callum's opening obviously derived from Viren's, and after s6 we have Claudia's, as well—both of which come with their own context that builds off of Viren's in different ways.

Lost Child

So while Viren's opening actually has very little to do with Aaravos (prior to Aaravos's actual appearance grasping him as a literal pawn), Claudia's (and Callum's, which we'll come back to in a bit) is difficult to interpret as not being related to her personal dynamic with Aaravos.

Interestingly, Claudia's opening places her at a very specific point in time, since it's visibly between two major physical changes to her body/appearance—her lower leg is missing, severed by Rayla in the Sea of the Castout at the end of s5, but she still has her long hair from before prompting Terry to cut it off for her early in s6. Even more specifically, she has the half-and-half split of black and white hair, which is already majority-white in s6e1:

This is Claudia in a moment we don't see on-screen—when, having failed to collect Aaravos's prison and not knowing that Viren has been offered and rejected the Infantis Sanguine spell, she turns to Aaravos in the dark of night and is willing to do anything to save her father.

I could do a whole thing here about the nature of Claudia's perception of Aaravos as both a paternal and divine figure, but the relevant part is that her only association between dark magic and Aaravos is a positive one—as far as she's concerned, Aaravos gave humanity dark magic as a benevolent gift, and her main reason (at least that she's willing to voice) for hesitating to give it up is that Aaravos kept his promises to her and it would be right to keep her promise to free him. In her opening, she goes from pained and defeated to looking upward with total trust and hope—looking to Aaravos the way she would have looked to Viren.

Her petrification shares the single tear with Viren and Avizandum, really cementing her place as another loop in the cycle of harm between humanity and Xadia that has dark magic at its heart. That callback to Viren's opening also puts hers in dialogue with him as much as with Aaravos, placing her in the same position as he is in a reflection of his horror and dismay that she has followed his path and example so closely.

Given that Claudia dramatically changes appearance (and, to an extent, attitude) immediately after this opening is introduced, it's possible that we'll see a different variant for s7... but given the end of s6, she actually hasn't really changed all that much. She has doubts about how to proceed with her life after Viren leaves, but as soon as Aaravos re-enters the picture, her conviction is back. She may not have done any dark magic after s6e1, but I don't think that's because she's decided to give it up.

Key Framing

Given the context of Claudia's opening, Callum's opening becomes unusual because it references Viren's without tying back to Avizandum and that cycle of harm. It's still on some level about dark magic, but Callum's relationship with dark magic isn't tied up in family and inheritance like Claudia's and Viren's are—instead it's focused entirely on fate vs. freedom, and on Aaravos specifically.

Callum's opening appears only for s4e4 ("Through the Looking Glass"), where he is possessed by Aaravos and it is established that his single use of dark magic is what allows that control, and for s5e8 ("Finnegrin's Wake") when he uses dark magic a second time. The shared opening puts those two episodes in obvious dialogue with each other, since s5e8 never makes explicit that the danger of dark magic for Callum is control by Aaravos—something he has already asked Rayla to end his life in order to avoid.

The focus in Callum's opening, both by its visual prominence and Callum's own gaze directed at it, is the Key. While Viren and Claudia's petrifications end the way Avizandum's does—with the single tear—Callum's ends with the Key in a blaze of light.

I expect we will see Callum's opening return for s7, possibly even as a primary opening, but it will almost certainly be recontextualized at some point and possibly even changed to a variant that reflects that new context. The Key is an element that will contribute to Callum's doom or salvation—or both, as a key can both lock and unlock—and its prominence in his opening reflects that and will likely be informed by how that resolution develops.

All of Us, Stardust

Speaking of alterations to the openings:

The final, altered version of the Viren opening kicks off s6, acting as a last, fun little extension of the "is Viren dead?" cliffhanger of s5. Aaravos's hand reaches down as usual, but instead of firmly grasping the petrified Viren, he very briefly hesitates before pushing it slightly, instead. The petrified Viren then crumbles and collapses into dust.

We first saw (or rather, had described to us via frantic convention attendee note-taking) this opening at the first reveal of s6e1, which was originally shown without any of the scenes revealing Viren to be alive. There are a lot of ways it could be interpreted, from a straightforward "he'd dead, Jim," to my own kind of fanciful theory from the time regarding Viren, dead or alive, having been made unusable by Aaravos as a pawn.

One way to contextualize this opening is with this old illustration from Patience, which ties in closely with the Aaravos chess/pawns motif (and was a significant part of contextualizing the arc 2 opening as "pawns"):

Now, there are a lot of things about this image that are important, not least the confirmation/reinforcement of the chain of manipulation of dark mages by Aaravos across thousands of years from Ziard to Viren, with the implication of Callum in the future. What I'd like to call attention to is that in chess, tipping over a piece is a gesture specifically used only with the king, and specifically to indicate that you are resigning the game and the opponent is victorious.

I don't think there's anywhere we've seen Aaravos truly lose, except for possibly when he was imprisoned, because his plans have levels of redundancy that mean they don't depend on any given individual—a game of chess hinges on the king, but Aaravos is essentially playing six or eight interconnected games at once, and a loss on one board only reinforces his remaining pieces on another. Losing Viren, deliberately or not, empowers his influence over Claudia... exactly as we see in the sequence of arc 2 openings. It would be difficult for them to have replicated the tipped-over/toppled king imagery with the petrified Viren without having to do some labor-intensive camera work on the existing opening pattern (e.g. do they show the ground when he falls? What even is the ground?)—so I think there's a strong likelihood that him crumbling to dust is meant to have a similar resonance.

Anyway, I'm kind of dancing around some complex theorizing and analysis of Viren's death that I go back and forth on depending on the day, but basically I do still think the important takeaway from this opening variant is that as far as Aaravos is concerned, Viren is off the board. That it's the opening for s6e1, rather than a special use for s6e8 (as Callum's variant openings are handled) is also IMO a positive sign regarding Aaravos's loss of control and direct manipulation of Viren over the course of s6. I don't think we've heard the last about Viren, and between Claudia, Soren, and Kpp'Ar there will definitely be a multifaceted interpretation of his legacy with significance in s7.

Opening the Final Season

Ultimately, given the dialogue between the three (four?) variant openings we have seen so far for arc 2, I think for s7 we can expect:

the Callum variant will appear at least once

at least one new Claudia- or Callum-based variant, OR possibly even an Aaravos variant

a new variant (possibly one of the ones from the previous point) to close out the arc for at least s7e9

That's my fevered ramblings about this 20-second repeated sequence, thanks for coming to my continuing insane TED talks on this and other ridiculous topics.

[knyhi]

What the hell was this.

[chimeride]

[blood-orange-juice]

Natlan speculation. call me paranoid but Mavuika is weirdly nice

and now she has offered to forge an Ancient name for us. which is essentially the same as recording the Traveler in Irmunsul

could it remove our Descender status?

I AM WORRIED. I WANT TO CONSULT NAHIDA

maybe she's genuine and means well but good people can be misguided too

upd: Saoki suggested that we might find the sibling's name through that process. I hope we will, it would be such a beautiful story

[heuldoch7b]

hi yeah me again. yeah its- yeah its more angron please dont hang up

[botanicallyinclinednerd]

I love it that with Stargate, counting how many times a character has died is a matter of semantics

[ambagel]

There are so many things I love about the new Obey Me event but THIS THISSSS

FHSJFNKSKFJKAKF

The extra three HDJAJFNAJ LOOK AT HIM HHHHHHHHHH

He wants us to rely on him??? 🤧😭🤸‍♀️

DENIAL DENIAL DENIAL

He clearly cares??? So like??? Are we opening some possibilities here? 🧐 PLEASE???

AND LOOK

HHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

SCREAMING LOOK AT HER

She's so sweet I love her so mUCH

Can

Can we be best friends thirteen

Please

I'll do anything please

[freakinator]

ii think the funniest thing about s5 is that while minute took inspiration from zam and did what he did in the latter half because of him, jumper ended up much more similar to him by virtue of having the same mindset

[997]

dont wanna sound sad on twitter so i chose to talk abt the huge void im feeling in my chest today to the 63k people that follow me on tumblr... hi

[erosology]

y’all expecting us to spoon-feed you content but not bothering to interact with us on a human-level is a big reason why your faves don’t hang out here anymore just sayin