#did i mention how glad i was to see kazuha in the liyue arc of this tcg event and not inazuma 🥹🥹🥹

[rikyos]

i never ever have time to write info up in my carrd and now that i’m working on a second one for lore dumps i’m making even less progress so. releasing hc’s into the wild again, this time of the angsty pre-canon variety.

kazuha has moderate nerve damage affecting his palm and fingers. the injuries he suffered were severe and tomo’s vision, in it’s final moments, gave him an electrical burn as a parting gift.

he also definitely didn’t escape those soldiers unscathed. though incredibly skilled in evasion, he was in complete disarray. hyperventilating. terrified, and but one man against an army. none of those wounds come close to the burns though.

while he recuperated very briefly at a resistance camp, he did not let anyone near his hand or seek any immediate medical assistance that went further than trying to deal with the burns on his own. nobody looked at it until he was aboard the alcor (and scolded) but even then, there was only so much they could do for him, and his first stop in liyue was most certainly bubu pharmacy. he needed something to help him sleep too LMAO

the timeline on his escape is very unclear from canon dialogues considering he somehow spent time with the watatsumi resistance and had ayato’s help but ??? for the sake of tying those two together, ayato sent someone looking for him after the warrants for his arrest were spread. ofc you have to be something very, very special to go undetected by kazuha, so when they finally caught up to him at the camp, he cornered them immediately, listened to their plans, and acted entirely clueless while complying with them.

by that point of course the damage was done and kazuha had lost most sensation in his hand. he had to completely retrain himself. while he is not naturally ambidextrous he did have the ability to switch between hands in combat knocked into him growing up, which was a small mercy and a good starting point. he also taught himself to use every one of his heightened senses in order to find the balance and special awareness that he could not feel. through stubborn determination he comes as close as is likely possibly to his past proficiency, however it takes him well over a year. basically: kazuha during the archon quest is not kazuha at peak performance, but getting back in shape in the timeframe he did speaks volumes for his willpower.

he isn’t ashamed of the scarring and he doesn’t care if people ask. he only keeps it covered bc he knows it’s pretty gnarly looking to others. it doesn’t bother him.

kazuha is a known lightweight but that is not the reason he isn’t supplied drink one the alcor. beidou is not his mother. in reality he found himself staying dry because on the initial journey from inazuma to liyue he was… a mess. a mess that scared her, in the midst of a breakdown over details he had only barely begun to recount to her sober. he’s fine now but a joint decision was made on that front and he respects it.

he holds juza in just as high a regard as he does beidou. they both made equal effort in pulling kazuha from his thoughts turned inward. they saved him fr

beidou paid him more than enough to survive while not out at sea and so he has a very small apartment in liyue harbour. it’s really just a room to crash in, but it was the first thing he’d owned in a long time, and it has a nice view of the docks and the sea beyond. between his time with the crux and his personal travels he isn’t there often, but it’s special to him. it’s getting to be something like a home.

during the first few months in liyue, kazuha was extremely paranoid. he knew that the sakoku decree limited information passing between the two nations but… he was a fugitive, probably wanted for treason, and he couldn’t rid himself of the fear that this might have been somehow passed on to the milileth if there was any stirring suspicions that this is where he’d made for. the shogun he knew was ruthless and he wouldn’t put it past her to search beyond inazuma’s borders for him, so he was overly secretive. it took him a while to realise he was genuinely safe enough to lighten up.

he always planned to return when the time was right. the war in inazuma was not only a pressing, personal issue, but now unfinished business: he kept tabs as best he could while sailing and intended all along to return and carry the torch that tomo lit.

[hey-haven]

Shenhe is the character Ei should have been

With the release of the new event, Genshin Impact introduced us to a new playable character by the name of Shenhe. She’s shown to be rather reserved, mysterious, and has literally been labeled as homicidal. And yet she’s probably one of the most interesting new characters we had in a long while.

Rest of the post will contain spoilers to Shenhe’s story and the event as a whole.

So Shenhe’s story is very similar to Ganyu in the sense that the former wants to belong somewhere but feels like an outcast no matter where she is. Only difference is that Shenhe specifically wants to belong in human society. We learn that she’s simply a human who grew up with the aptepti after her father tried to sacrifice her to monsters. Reason why he did that was both because he wanted to bring back his dead wife and like a sacrifice was in order blah blah. But also it was because Shenhe has been prophesied to bring harm to everyone around her due to her homicidal tendencies that I mentioned before.

Spoiler alert, she didn’t die. No, instead Cloud Retainer found her, took Shenhe in and raised her.

The general point here is that Shenhe is a person riddled with trauma and generally isn’t exactly a “good” person. I mean I’d argue that having homicidal tendencies makes you at least a tiny bit suspicious but ya know it’s not like not murdering someone is a bare minimum or whatever.

Point is her journey with the traveler is to learn to use the strength and power she has for good and to be able to fit in with the people of Liyue.

I remember seeing some people in TikTok grow worried that, like Ei, Shenhe would go from the badass, homicidal Girlboss into a perfect, for lack of a better term, waifu. And honestly I was worried too considering the sudden switch they did with Ei’s character. But thank fucking Christ, that was not the case.

Yes, Shenhe still learns and grows and tries to be better a person. That’s how a character arc goes after all. However literally the last scene of the event is a small joke about Shenhe literally threatening to kill someone and Paimon going “Oop, she still got a long way to go.” And I’m fully aware that was merely thrown in to be funny, but I’m honestly glad that did.

Joke or not, they do still acknowledge that Shenhe’s journey is far from over. She still has a lot to learn and grow and the adventure she had with the traveler was only the beginning. And regardless her personality doesn’t do a complete 180.

With Ei, she’s introduced as this terrifying, borderline dictator who literally starved her people and took away their very ambitions all for the sake of “eternity”. Even though what she basically wanted was to put her people at a permanent stasis and not grow or develop. It’s stupid, and honestly I think the mistake was making a goddess for something as nuanced and complex as the concept of eternity without having the actual skills to write the character as complex and nuanced as the very thing she represents.

And like yeah they acknowledge with her character quest that permanent stasis is literally impossible and that a society will develop regardless blah blah blah. That’s not the problem. The problem is that the writers tried sooooo damn hard to make Ei redeemable that they take the terrifying leader that she was and reduced her down to some sweet loving dork who can’t cook.

And no matter how many excuses they tried to throw like how the terrible actions was literally just her puppet and not Ei herself (which only makes it worse because then it just paints Ei as super neglectful of her own people), or how it was really the Fatui behind the Vision Hunt Degree (again, only adds to Ei negligence), it doesn’t erase the pain she put her people through under HER leadership.

But no, just have her Fox girlfriend walk in and talk her out of her bedroom and everything is suddenly fine and Ei is actually cute and perfect and sweet and, ya know she still killed Kazuha’s friend. We’re not going to acknowledge that either? No? Alright fine.

My point here is that I am not upset at the fact that Inazuma gets a happy ending, and I’m aware that they also acknowledge that the nation is still working to undo all the trouble and literal oppression it went through but I’m not talking about Inazuma itself, I’m talking about Ei as a character.

They should have kept Ei as cold and scary and ignorant while acknowledging that she will grow and learn eventually. Just not now. And also please for the love of god make her face the consequences of her actions. Shenhe doesn’t have to cause she didn’t really do anything wrong while on her quest, but Ei literally fucked over her people! No, the trauma she experienced in her past doesn’t count nor does her being traumatized excuse her of her actions!

Overall Shenhe is great, Ei actually sucks, and it seems like the writers are only good at their job when they’re not writing for Inazuma.