#memory of dust

[selephi]

Memory of Dust

[ceruleanvermillion]

Ahhh these are such good points, I loved reading through it all!! Im definitely in camp Guizhong might have been corrupted. The way nobody seemed to know or actually mention what killed her other than "a battle" is def a point of interest for me and Soraya (treasure lost treasure found). If he did kill her though, I wonder if the other adepti knew about it also? Seems inevitable that they would, but if the corruption is from, say, forbidden knowledge, I can see why it might have never been revealed at all, leading to assumptions that could have been taken as fact?

I absolutely see Guizhong as being older than Zhongli, this is super fascinating to me bc zhongli himself seems to be implied to have been around since the moon sister calamity era. We don't know his age, just that he descended 6K years ago. From what I know, it seems that the original CN character mihoyo used seems to imply some sort of "demotion"/going down from a higher position for whatever reasoning? I do actually wonder if that plays a part on why they became allies in the first place, being able to relate in that way. Memory of Dust's CN name is "Mortal World Lock", I wonder if it could technically imply that what's in there isn't necessarily a " Memory" in the traditional sense.

For the Irminsul wipe, I totally agree with the fact that it couldn't have happened since we know her name and others do talk about her, but I now wonder if instead it's the knowledge that is in MoD itself can possibly constitute one if not handled in a certain way, which is why she keeps it sealed and trusts him with it? This is likely irrelevant to the discussion, but Nahida mentioned something about how stories can used to bypass Irminsul, so I wonder if that's going to show up in Liyue lore one day.

As for MoD, I personally do think that it could be interpreted as Zhongli's own memory remembering the past- though it's mostly because iirc I don't think Traveler as characters are privy to weapon lore as players are? the use of "he" in place of "Rex Lapis" feels kind of personal and the things described don't seem publicly known to my knowledge. That being said, I can absolutely see how it appears like how the storytellers are speaking, kind of like the Azhdaha cutscene, and the stuff there isn't all chronologically ordered either. It's actually so crazy thinking about the amount of things players know that traveler might not have learned about yet at all until a particular quest

really enjoyed reading through that hehe I love guizhong lore^^

Circumstances of Guizhong's Death

90% sure something's up with Guizhong's death because weapon lore is basically from the devs and is therefore reliable and yet it contradicts Cloud Retainer's account and cutscene and why in the world would Cloud Retainer of all people lie??? But her retelling doesn't really line up and Zhongli WON'T SAY ANYTHING. Mihoyo is definitely doing this with intention, because they have an eye for details. Also the yakshas appearing in the cutscene makes the timeline... Super weird???

anyway here's a list

Cloud Retainer said this: "Guizhong was overpowered by the enemy, and fell in battle. When Streetward Rambler and I arrived at the scene at long last, all that remained among the ruins... was her lifeless body."

This has several implications: CR and Ping found her when she was already dead. Her body was what was left. There were surrounded by ruins. She also fell in battle. (we don't actually who found her *first*, since the cutscene depicted everyone being there. However the phrase used was "all that remained...lifeless body" implying CR and Ping found her like that.)

SPEAKING OF THE CUTSCENE. We see her being basically petrified/turned into a statue. Again, everyone was there, even the Yakshas, and Zhongli. There was this magic shape thing above her in the cutscene, we dont know what it is. But when it played, there was this glitch effect and we see this:

again, we don't know what it is or why the devs chose to add that funky glitch effect.

WHY THIS IS WEIRD AND IMPORTANT? This is a quote from what Memory of Dust weapon lore says: "He also remembers those words she spoke at the end — again, amid the Glaze Lilies."

This alone partly contradicts CR. Glaze Lilies. Not ruins. Okay, but there could've been some ruins from battle. So this is not complete evidence. However, something else caught my eye.

this being: Zhongli was with Guizhong in her final moments.

Another very important quote: "Her final smile was a lonely one, even as her form dissolved into the finest dust. "It seems that our journey together has come to an end. As for that stone dumbbell, forget about it, would you?""

And also this: ""If you can unlock it—" Many years passed, and he was never able to unlock that dumbbell, nor would he ever learn what might have followed that sentence."

Again, according to this, Zhongli was with Guizhong in her final moments. He heard her last words. He was there/already there before she died, she was not dead yet when he was with her.

(what might've implied in this description: That Zhongli and Guizhong were alone and no one else was there, because no other persons were mentioned. Again, this is while likely is also tentative, because there was no explicit mention. This way Zhongli might've found her first.)

What matters was that there was no way they found her at the state of *already dead*. Because according to MoD, "Her Form Dissolved into the finest dust." She's turning to dust even before dying. There shouldn't have been a body to find if she literally dissolved into dust. This is Direct Contradiction from CR's account and the cutscene, which depicted her body as stone/petrified. In Memory of Dust weapon lore, Guizhong's last words were cut-off, meaning even Zhongli didn't hear everything she was going to say. This was the moment of her death- the moment she likely had completely dissolved into dust was when she was still talking to Zhongli.

Let's review

According to CR: She fell in battle, they found her body, already dead, among the ruins.

According to MoD: When she died, Zhongli was with her. He heard her last words. She dissolved into dust.

Contradictions:

In MoD lore, her form dissolved into dust but cutscene + CR said they found her body and that she was turned to stone.

They found her body among ruins/scene of battle according to CR but in MoD she died among the Glaze Lilies.

Yaksha timeline weird

Arguable/tentative/still really vague stuff: According to CR she fell in battle because she was "overpowered by the enemy"- how did that happen if Zhongli was there according to MoD? He's still alive, after all. Also ngl they had a moment™️when she died because he had heard her last words- shouldn't he be fighting lmao??? Also shouldn't the glaze lilies be destroyed by battle?

TLDR There was no way CR and Ping would've found her body if we're going purely by what was explicitly mentioned in MoD. Vice Versa, there was no way MoD scenario would have worked out the way it allegedly did if we're going by CR's account.

also what in the world was that thing that was supposedly contained in the cutscene? The one in the third picture above.

Theories.

Obviously, this means that we should not take these accounts at face value. Either *something else happened that we still don't know* OR *Only one of these accounts was right*. So there's like a bunch of theories abt this. Anyway these are just some of them.

Maybe one could argue that Zhongli petrified her body after she died and dissolved, and that both accounts are technically right. But again, such a thing was *never* mentioned by either sources. is it even possible to do such a thing? Also why in the world would he feel the need to construct a whole fake scenario instead of just telling CR and Ping? Did something happen that made him think he has to?

Irminsul mind-wipe. This one is vague but Sumeru made it a possible option. However, why? why should they erase her? What did she do, what happened? They did put a glitch effect- so was that a creative choice or where they alluding to it? Also, again, what was that thing they were containing in the cutscene? also what's inside memory of dust and why did she ask zhongli to forget it?

In MoD we see Guizhong say two contradicting things. She told Zhongli to forget about MoD. but later it seemed like she was about to tell him the opposite. We don't know what she said because she unfortunately was dead.

Some people theorized that Zhongli might've killed Guizhong himself, because of the lines in Jade cutter weapon lore. Again, why? they were close up to her death, as mentioned by MoD. If that happened, why?

So, thoughts?

[astrugglingacademic]

WAIT. ZHONGLI SIGNED THAT CONTRACT WITH THE TSARITSA AND IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE AN EQUAL TRADE.

What if, for some reason, she could unlock Memory of Dust??? Hello??? And he would find that a fair trade!!!

[mildarka]

Felt like making a reverted AU

[laurrelise]

okay i gotta be so honest one of the ONLY good parts about season 4 is when five is sketching in his little book and lila goes “dear diary, why do i always wear suits?”

that was fucking hilarious i will die on this hill

[franeridart]

op sketching backlog

[dilfslayer1080p]

hey if you're still up for suggestions i think it would be funny to put benry in one of those hydraulic presses and crush him. like in all those youtube videos

He's having a fantastic time

[tangledinink]

i’m going f*cking feral for the swanatello au

[ prev ]

swanatello

[ start ]

[ prev ]

[justalittleguest]

So about the last “Spilled Ink” chapter…

[applepie-enthusiast]

Sanemi: I never lose my virginity because I never lose.

Giyuu: I can change that.

Sanemi: what

Giyuu: what

[wordfather]

in my bed going hmmmmmm ahh thats an idea i should write that down. and then i fall asleep

[ant1quar1an]

because the kustard thoughts are wild:

consider Craftverse Dust, Horror, Classic and Killer having dated Fell before, and now he's been recruited into Nightmare's multi-planetary gang.

and has to deal with all of his exes.

[gayhorrorsans]

Inspired by this post - @dustcrumbs

Tw: Mentions of self-injury (scratching arms, thighs, skull, eye) + Passing mention of skipping meals.

Next post: here

Horror is deeply insecure about losing his past, anything he loses about himself he deems as a loss equivalent to losing his brother, which in itself, he hates. He hates how he views an inanimate, or figurative, thing as equal to his brother in terms of Importance. He wears a different jacket to what 'sans' wore, but he still has the past one in his wardrobe.

He tries to preserve it's perfect attributes. Especially when compared to his other clothes that he takes no care for, throws them in the washer every now and again. That's about it. He clings on to anything that's reminds him of his past self, a bottle of ketchup, a receipt from Grillbys. His old balled up duvet. He can't bring himself to throw any of it away, no matter how harassed he gets by Nightmare or Killer or Dust or whoever.

It causes something in him to snap, he prides himself on being the most sane member of the bad sanses - which says a lot about their overall sanity - but messing with those few things causes him to break down. And if he finds someone attempting to damage or throw one of those things he clings onto away he will not hesitate to fight.

This has lead to past altercations. Including with Nightmare. All Horror sees is someone taking or damaging his past self. Who the person is is irrelevant in that moment, he will fight until he passes out from exhaustion, or is restrained to the point he can't move. It's an issue he never gets better with, the only thing he hasn't improved on since he's joined Nightmare's gang.

But when it comes to figurative things like forgetting things, including his friends names, his own birthday and most recently, knowledge. Horror typically breaks down, crying, stressing and pulling and scratching at himself. He never uses anything to do this with, just his hands - which are more like claws - he'll scratch his skull crack and eye socket. Sometimes his arms and thighs, scratching until he's called to do something, caught, or until he can't do it anymore.

This isn't as bad as when his physical items are damaged or meddled with. But in some situation can cause him to lose extreme amounts of magic, which visibly appears to be blood. And, in one particularly bad situation he scratched his eye, reducing his already limited vision by 25%.

------------------STORY AHEAD-------------------

But the hardest hitting one was Horror's knowledge. He had been reading a book -one out of Nightmares library - when the words became sort of fuzzy, it wasn't his vision but the words seemed to dance about the page, not in a hallucinatory way. The words just didn't make sense. When he could read a fixed line, it made no sense. This was basic stuff for 'sans'. Integration, Differentiation. Calculus, advanced mathematics, but basic considering he did have a Doctorate in Mathematics. Why were things making sense?

Other books Horror took from the library didn't make sense. Not Math. Not Science. Not Ethics. Nor Philosophy and Law. Sans was a well educated man, he had numerous bachelor degrees, Masters and PhD's. Yet for all those that he had spent years studying, they made no sense. He forgot basic stuff, justice. What is justice? What was 5*5?

The sudden reality of it all crashing down on him. He had taken dozens, nearly even a hundred books from the library, trying to understand things. But ever time he read and didn't understand, he would stress more. He spent no time working out and training. He would skip meals every day, and eventually it became clear, he was growing slightly slimmer and was overall weaker. Not to mention Nightmare had taken note of his missing books.

So naturally he went to check on Horror, as he can't have anyone losing their strength. Horror was a weeping mess on the floor, crying, scratching his eye socket, crack, thighs, arms, eye. Anywhere he could scratch he would cycle between. His crack had grown slightly larger, in fact it was so bad now his left eye socket and crack were less than a centimeter from meeting. He caused a little damage to the eye itself, but not too much. He was looking at about 6 books ranging in topics. Ones Nightmare had never read, he preferred fiction to non-fiction, unless it was history.

Horror's state was horrifying - pun potentially intended - Nightmare had never seen him like that before. Sure he'd seen Horror get violent, but not emotional. It's mainly Dust and Killer who had seen him like this, but it had never been this bad. But Nightmare had felt Horror's negativity. And he had noticed the books missing. So he had some inkling of an idea.

"Quit that. What are you doing?"

Horror whipped his head around to look at Nightmare.

"Wh-whoa Boss. S-sorry I uh- didn't see you there" He scratched the back of his head this time, acting nonchalant, as if there wasn't blood pooling down his face to indicate there was certainly something wrong. "You should really knock heh-"

Nightmare thought. Excuses. That was one thing Horror certainly had left of sans, extremely convenient excuses or distractions from the topic at hand. "You know I can tell when somethings wrong. Not to mention you pick at your wound when you're overwhelmed. Why not at least verbalise your worries to me?"

Nightmare looked down at the ground, where bits of skull lay. It was a shock Horror could literally rips bits of his skull off. It's not easy to rip bone, even if the bone itself is already damaged. Horror makes it look easy. "I can heal your wounds. But I'd rather prevent them. And I can't bring your skull back to its normal state. So I'd rather prevent you from ever picking at it again. How about you speak about it as I clean up?"

Horror felt his wounds heal as Nightmare gently whisked magic over them. His skull wouldn't heal much, if at all. But he was alive. He was embarrassed though. He was a grown man who can't read a book and can barely understand basic maths and general knowledge. "You... won't tell anyone?"

"I'll kill anyone who overhears."

Comforting I suppose. Horror sighed, clutching his knees. "I can't... Read. Nor understand basic arithmetic or knowledge. I even robbed a children's book and I couldn't understand that. It was like... ugh. I have an education. I can't even understand 5*5 and know what a stupid word means... This is so embarrassing." He hid his head in his knees somewhat, talking between his knees with his mouth slightly covered, muffling his words a little, but not significantly.

"I can't read the covers. The images don't make sense. I used to do this for a living and now I can't... even understand what something is. Regardless if I know how to do it. I'm a grown man who can't read. I've tried. I'll never learn."

Nightmare thought for a second, but not too long as not to make Horror think Nightmare believed he was stupid. "Dont be so pessimistic. That's my job." He seemed oddly proud of his role of negativity. Creeping Horror out slightly, Nightmare even when teasing was still creepy. "Why do you wanna learn? You've never expressed an interest in reading since I've known you. A good few years now eh?"

"It's... one of the last things I have of him. Of sans. I can't lose him, I defend every bit about him with my life, and I can't risk losing him. He's my past. My perfect past..." Horror hyperventilated a little, but finished his little speech before it hit too bad. Great, another existential crisis.

"Well, you don't have to. I learnt how to read. Not quite all the... other stuff. That's not my area, but I did learn how to read on my own." Well this was music to Horrors ears, he could barely contain himself as Nightmare described his past. "Yeah I never had a teacher so I had to do it all and... ...was alone... ...helped... ... and yeah. It was hard and I struggled but I did it." Nightmare had spoken for about 5 minutes, Horror registered 25 seconds of it.

"Teach me." Nightmare looked at Horror like he was dumb. "Teach me. I want to learn I can... I can preserve him... Sans. Please."

Nightmare paused. "Fine. But don't see this as an act of kindness. I'm only helping you because you'll be able to read about.. new weapon making. Yeah."

[quietwingsinthesky]

every time i think im okay i remember that the echoes of clara across the doctor’s timeline didn’t know they were echoes. or. no, some of them did, i think, but the more clara gives of herself to save the doctor, the more she loses the sense of who she is. and that’s why some of the echoes just seem like clara, knowing why she’s there and what she’s there to do. and some of them, many of them, don’t. the ones eleven meets don’t. and how many of them didn’t know haunts me. how many of them died just out of sight of the doctor, for the doctor, alone, without knowing why.

[dustykneed]

pov: you're having your comphet removed 🌈🤯😤 (doctor's orders) 🙏🏼💫🩻

this is why bones only gets to play dress-up as a treat 😔 if they'd put him in a little blue tunic in plato's stepchildren it would've been deadly

@very-bad-poetry-captain was watching the cloud minders and generously brought these skimpy little guard outfits to my attention. and then i blacked out for two hours and...

[randomly--accessed--memories]

did some height comparison stuff because i was curious about vox and niffty's height difference and then got carried away