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starry-skies-tell-no-lies · 6 months

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The First Spinner of Light

When the world was far younger, there lived a girl who had been taught to spin by her mother and found nothing more enjoyable than to spin all manner of roving into the finest yarns ever seen. She was only extraordinary in the ways that all young children are, full of joy and life and potential.

Her family celebrated her talent as they did all of her siblings talents. They wore and sold the thread that she spun, and used the money to support themselves and ensure that there would always be roving on Arachne's spindle and wheel.

Word of her talent spread, and she would often receive offers of commission to spin new found fibers into stunning threads. She happily took most commissions, turning away only those that she was too busy for, as she enjoyed the challenge of learning something new.

Until one day, a man from very far away, and great wealth, thought himself entitled to her work as he believed himself to be the most important man in the world. He demanded that she spin him enough thread to be woven into a hundred yards of the finest cloth yet seen on earth.

She of course was still working on her latest commission, and her own projects. To start such a thing would be insane, she told the man. He did not care, and threatened the spinner and her family if she did not comply.

Seeing no other option the girl agreed, and only then did the man reveal the last requirement of this cloth. It must be made of a material never before seen on this earth. No other fabric could already be made of this fiber.

The spinner wanted to cry and weep, for she had seen and spun fiber from every end of the earth, and she did not know of any fibers left untried. She did not let her despair hinder her though, for the lives of her family were at stake, and she must succeed. She consoled herself with the thought of returning to them, and never seeing this horrible man again.

She worked on her other projects as she pondered what she could spin that had never been spun before.

She asked of the birds as they sang out her window what she hadn't yet spun, but they simply kept singing ignoring her.

She asked _______(patron with a focus on creating things/crafting) for advice, but that was the Wednesday that _______(pc) was busy making ________(ceramics) so they did not hear her pleas.

She continued to spin through the entire day and well through the night, pleading and asking anyone who would listen to tell her of some new thing to spin for her freedom and her family's.

In her distraction, she had not noticed night give way to dawn. Arachne, had not noticed The Lady of the Dark hearing her in the night. The Lady of the Dark's heart cried for this child who should not be in such a position, so she sought to remedy this for the child.

The Lady of the Dark knew of something that no one had ever spun, but she also knew that Arachne was one of the favored children of _______(pc) and would only need a little push to figure it out on her own.

Come dawn, a beam of light fell right where Arachne's roving ended, and as she continued to spin, some of the light was spun along with her roving. When she finished her latest appeal to ______(pc) she realized what she had done.

Crying in delight, she quickly set down her spindle, and sat down at the spinning wheel the arrogant man insisted she spin his thread on. It was enchanted so that none may steal the thread off of it, and if stolen the thread would return to him and him alone.

The girl sat there spinning for three days and three nights, until there was indeed enough thread to weave a hundred yards of fabric.

_______(pc) sustained her throughout the day, easing the soreness of her fingers, and ensuring the wheel spun true.

The Lady of Darkness took over in the night, singing to Arachne the first weaving songs to keep her in time. Kissing the spinner's brow, and holding her in comfort and strength.

When dawn ended the third night, and Arachne had finished, she knew not who had saved her, but gave her thanks all the same. (The Lady of Darkness did not blame this child for not knowing her, this was a child of daylight and warmth, a summer's child)

The man came to see Arachne's work, and praised her for her ingenuity. Never before had someone seen roving in light, and the thread she had spun was as radiant as the light she had twisted.

The man insisted that as she had so little trouble spinning sunlight, she might not be troubled to spin more thread for him. Enough thread for a hundred more yards of fabric each, in two new materials.

Arachne was angry, but once again found herself with little choice, and she thought, surely this must be the last thing he could ask of me. Just this one thing more and my family will be free from harm.

This time she knew what to spin. She spun moonlight, silvery soft, and cool as well as starlight, which glittered on the bobbin.

For three more days and three more nights, she spun without pause for food or sleep. She would have perished if not for _____(pc) and The Lady of Darkness sustaining her, but all of the thread was done come dawn at the end of the third night, and all of it made by her hand. Her family would be free.

Once again the man came to inspect the goods. He was privately astonished at how much this mere peasant child had made. He was more shocked that this family still chose to live in their countryside home without flaunting the wealth that this child surely brought.

He said he would give her a week's rest, but then the spinner would have a week to spin a new thread, of the same amount as the first three.

Arachne realized that this man would never stop. As long as he still lived and threatened her family he would be asking her to spin him all of the earth. She could not let this happen.

For the week she had to recover, she rested, and thanked ____(pc), and planned. She thought of all the things she could try to spin to end this man.

The only thing that would resoundly stop this man was a death, and she had none but her own to spin.

Now, it must be noted that in this time, the world was considered generally more flexible than most would think today. Arachne is the finest weaver of all time, and she possessed skill and talent beyond the wildest reckoning.

And so at the end of her week of rest, she reached and pulled and teased and tugged, and spent three days and three nights spinning her death. It was a soft and gentle death, slipping off in her sleep at an advanced age.

She spun her death and her dying moments, and out of a bit of spite, she was never proud of it, a bit of her anger slipped in as well. Itching the horrid man for all eternity.

Her death only took half of the time, but that was important as she spun the most indestructible thing she could imagine to ply next to her death. She spun her hope. her desire to be free, to keep her family safe. She spun and spun until she thought that surely all of her hope must be wrapped around the bobbin of the wheel.

She would come to realize with age that hope heals itself, and she would never run out, but that is a story for another day.

At last she had a thread made of death, and hope. Terrible and indestructible. When the man came, she begged him to allow her the honor of being the one to weave it into cloth.

He agreed, not caring exactly who made his fine fabrics, and gave her considerably more time to weave than he ever did to spin.

When the fabric was done, she again begged him the honor of allowing her to be the one to make him a coat of such a fine material. He again agreed, not caring how the coat was made, only that he wear it, an no one else have anything as expensive.

She sewed it all with threads of hope, and when the man put it on, he immediately fell dead, she sewed the coat closed, so that no one may free him, and immediately fell to the floor crying.

She had never wanted to be the cause for death. She had never imagine the life of a spinner would lead to violence, but here was a horrible man wearing her death, and her hopes all wrapped up in one.

At that moment ______(pc) could do no good, for they are never good at soothing tears. The Lady of Darkness donned her mantle, and swept Arachne into her arms.

She hushed, and rocked, and sang until the child of summer's light in her arms could once more breathe evenly. She consoled ARachne who had become far more than she'd ever hoped in ways she was not yet ready to embrace.

Arachne went home to her family, they were all safe until the end of their days, but Arachne had spun away her death and her age, she would forever remain living as long as the horrible man remained dead.

She was not the same girl before as she was before she learned how to spin light. No, she was not the same, but she learned how to spin many many more things for the love of it, as she was not entirely different either.

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welcometoteyvat · 10 months

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rant ahead lmao

i believe your gripes are completely valid because i have the same gripes. it feels like their storytelling (for the entire game) is all over the place. the high cloud quintet is literally something i’ve never chanced upon in the game. i only know it via fandom. this is similar to how that pyro butterfly lady is the crimson witch. only those who dig deep enough into the game will find out about it, and just like genshin, such “information” spreads quickly in the community.

HOWEVER, what genshin does better than star rail is that its main story DOES NOT rely on these snippets to tell its story. do i need to know she was the crimson witch when what happened to her happened? no. not at all. she was there for X purpose in the main storyline and therefore she did what she had to do and left. her being crimson witch was to add depth to her character which the main story had no space to do so.

stair rail, on the other hand, EXPECTS you to find out all these little tidbits, which to me is too time consuming and annoying. why split the story into its separate segments if i need to know them in order to understand the main story?? that’s just poor storytelling imho.

i think you’ll like this video. i agree with it. i get that the funeral for fox character was supposed to be emotional, but this video is right that we know NOTHING about this character. from my own personal experience, the funeral was so boring and honestly irritating because i. don’t. care. in fact, i didn’t even know she was with us throughout the quest so when she had her background voicelines i was always so confused????

i feel the hype around the characters is because the designs of each character have given people a desire to seek more about said characters, and there is abundance information. but this shouldn’t be something to expect of the players.

give me a reason to care that’s not just aesthetics, please.

video will be sent in next ask.

video: https://youtu.be/vaPL0UZK_HQ?si=puvssJPBLc2H57vk

ok thank you for validating me LMAO i was constantly wondering "where is the ancient dead people lore" (hcq) during the entire quest chain, which unfortunately contained very little of what fandom promised me (character depth). apparently i've not be reading enough books and pamphlets you can collect since the lore is concentrated there and in limited character's character stories

tbh I think the reveal that La Signora was the Crimson Witch was also really bad lol, for the same reason that the video argues DH IL's transformation is unimpactful. like "omg wow alternate identity revealed!" but it doesn't really have any impact on the conflict of the story we're currently looking at. they could've just switched it, or not even given her a transformation, instead just showing an extended duel with us and making it visible that she was tired and out of power before she dies, and I don't really know if anything would've changed. same with dan heng IL, I'd probably get more out of it if I read the hcq book from that one opera performer, but ehh there wasn't enough visibly shown leadup, like you said.

I guess the difference between genshin world lore (things in artifacts, weapons, books, world quests etc) and star rail lore is that genshin's is either about the past or future, but not necessarily about the present characters? thinking about the pale flame lore, which gave everyone the fatui crumbs before scara and la signora's stories were introducted in the main storyline, the enkanomiya quests about the vishaps and ancient history of teyvat, and the narzissenkreuz quests that also connect to that + khaenriah + a host of other world lore things. I guess it's nice that reading through all the materials isn't "mandatory" because it's either about the ancient past, dead npcs (so many of the artifact sets) or foreshadowing for important elements in the future that will still get introduced in the main story. I will be biased and agree w you, star rail's lore crumbs are rather :\ storytelling. like I would be fine if the hidden nuggets of lore were about >npcs >lore that happened but is not directly relevant to a character's main arc >foreshadowing for future events/story. but instead it's more like mandatory background reading that is crucial to understand a character's stories, instead of enriching your knowledge of them? anyways yeah

now abt tingyun. I agree that the funeral was really ???????????? i agree w you and the video lol. playing it, I was mostly in disbelief that we're assuming tingyun is legitimately dead even though she's still playable (no dead playables in genshin moment). I also think the thing with the 3 npcs we had to talk to was bullshit because. like the video said, we could've spent time with tingyun (maybe visiting the npcs we collected things from) BEFORE she died and maybe it would have given us more emotional impact. the way they retroactively show how kind and generous she was really put me off, we could've seen this all in person instead of hearing it from other people...... bruh also the way everyone got together in that cutscene when i dont think any of them were really shown to have a deep connection w her is so ..... >_> the emotional impact did not hit whatsoever

but I'm gonna level with you I think they made her role as our guide pretty clear and the implication that she was traveling with us was also pretty clear. no shade though

about the rest of the video: oh he put things into words that I could not articulate JSDKLFJDSKL. not really any thoughts but i agree that a lot of the characters (qingque, xueyi especially) could have just been cut T_T i like both of their designs and personalities based on other material in game but their main quest participation was Not It rip. also agree about the characters being vehicles for exposition and not having their personalities shine through. I'd argue maybe you can tell somewhat of what they're like (jing yuan, fu xuan, yanqing to some extent) but man there's just too much lore explaining for them to really show what they do on a normal schedule it's so .......... also because fanart and fanfic makes them seem so fun im standing here looking at the main plot like >_> <_< what was that. i'm sure it gets better inside their own companion quests, which I haven't done, but that shouldn't be the only place the character gets to really shine lmao

I agree that their design makes people more willing to invest but god I'm so sorry hsr designs really aren't my thing, the color palettes are just incredibly bad JDKSFLJDSKLGHKDJ the only thing holding up the story are the plot and personalities of chars and neither of those were delivered ...

#i think i also engage with hsr differently than genshin bc i made a promise to myself not to spend time on it thus I Dont Have Time to Read #this is also compounded by the fact that i think i have at least 15 character story quests sitting there unfinished like i genuinely can't #dig into the lore even if i wanted to. too much other shit to be doing after not playing for 6 months #well anyways i think this got away from the main point but in general thank you for the discussion :3 #hsr #asks #anon ask #ramblings!#i legit forgot that xue.yi existed in the main story until the video like IT WAS ENTIRELY UNNECESSARY WE COULDVE JUST KEPT GOING #the event has done so much better about properly introducing her. still idk how much i understand her but at least shes actually relevant #also i wrote the first part before actually actually playing the whole quest so i didn't get to the epilogue (?) scene with luo.cha in the #prison again. and so since he's sus I don't know how much foreshadowing of that we were supposed to get????????? again i feel like i wasn't #paying attention or am stupid or the game is so bad at directing audience attention to things that will become important

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