#was it fayz trials??

[genshin-impact-updates]

"Brewing Developments" Event: Shock-Boiled Brew Challenges

〓Event Duration〓

2023/04/13 10:00:00 – 2023/04/24 03:59:59

〓Event Rewards〓

〓Eligibility〓

Adventure Rank 20 or above

〓Event Details〓

● During the first 8 days of the "Brewing Developments" event, one new challenge will be unlocked every 2 days.

● During each challenge, you can use the trial characters provided by the event or your own to complete 3 consecutive combat rounds.

● The Shock-Boiled Brew allocated for each round has 4 potential effects. The Shock-Boiling Device will automatically use the Shock-Boiled Brew and can randomly activate one or more effects for a certain period of time, providing tremendous support during combat.

● The goal of the challenge is to defeat as many opponents as possible within the time limit to score points. When the challenge ends, you will receive Primogems, Talent Level-Up Materials, Hero's Wit, Mystic Enhancement Ore, and Mora based on this score.

※ Food and other items will not be available during these challenges.

[genshinimpactresources]

Genshin Impact | Some Assets from The Great Fayz Reaction Debate

Download Link for All Assets

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

The last fayz trials? Where did that one go wrong? Mind you I couldn’t figure out the controls at all for activating the burst thing, so I get it I’m just. Curious why you didn’t like it

i just found the idea of having to completely stop everything i was doing in order to activate the picture thing so jarring. plus it somehow felt like they had geared the event towards being a photo-op so that you could take pretty pictures of your characters? but with the ultra wonky activation and all the particles it just didn't feel right. i think there was a different way to get the screen to pause? but i can't remember. like even the original fayz trials, which was not a photo-op disguised as a combat event, had far more photo-op potential as it was so much more intuitive to activate

but yeah mostly that it felt like they pushed the photo-op too much onto the battle and the battles themselves wound up feeling lacking. the activation was so wonky for me that i ended up just not using it nearly as much as the stages intended for me to 🤷‍♂️

[rubys-domain]

fuck, what if the reason i'm winning my 50/50's is because hoyo doesn't want me to have tighnari

[twilightstarr-zinnia]

Is it just me or is this fayz trial incredibly annoying? I am staying in constant motion to avoid the jarring stops. I am actively avoiding engaging with this whole mechanic.

[shamehaversoffontaine]

if simulated universe existed in genshin, you would be having the most insane run, a bunch of really powerful cards, and dehya's ult would still not crack 10k per attack

[tirsden]

There are bad guys in them there spell-effects. Somewhere.

(Genshin Impact Fayz Trials event)

[enden-k]

3.7 livestream summary

codes:

XT82F8JZS4TR 2SRKFQ2YSMVV 5A92W9JZBLCH

new 4star dendro sword character!!! the youkai courier kirara I LOVE HER SM AAAAAA (her E creates a shield, holding it makes her transform into a little kitty box that can travel around fast, her Q creates kitty shaped dendro bombs)

banners:

1st half: Yoimiya rerun + Yae Miko rerun + Kirara 2nd half: Kazuha rerun + Haitham rerun

story/quests:

Carassius Auratus Chapter: Act II - Yoimiya story quest 2nd chapter

KAVEH HANGOUT, I REPEAT, KA-

events:

main event: Genius Invokation TCG competition event (free new 4star bow "ibis piercer" + various mini games such as the return of the evermotion mechanical painting, combat challenges, etc)

Divine Ingenuity: Collectors Chapter (the one where u design ur domain to challenge each other)

Feast of the Departed Warriors - the one where we battled boss enemies in the domain (last one had oceanid and maguu kenki etc iirc)

Fayz Trials: Hypothesis - that battle challenge where we took pics of the enemies weakspots and make them go boom etc etc etc

other:

new cards (the archons, xiao?? I SAW XIAO, new monsters, new game modes, etc)

that ending?......fontai- 🤨

[quinn-gaither]

sam and drake as the trial before pilate; or, an analysis of the powerplant incident

religion is all over gone. it's there in abundance, from the names to the internal dialogue to the very acts and events that happen. the overlap of traditional religious idiosyncracies between different characters are so plentiful it is difficult to sit here and say that this character represents this religious figure; they are an amalgamation of different gospels, showing how theology and the themes of the bible can apply to gone as a wider subject matter to stretch out the dystopia, show how the worst of people brings out the very humanity of them.

as such, i don't know for certain if this parallel or idea was intentional or ever in MG's mind as he wrote the scene, but it is something that has stuck with me a lot in my reread: how the drake/sam whipping in the powerplant strongly mirrors jesus' trial before pilate. the extract sticks out to me particularly in terms of understanding how the whipping of sam impacted his arc and his character for the rest of the novel. full disclaimer, i am not an expert in christian theology nor am i christian, and this comparison only came to my mind recently, so it may not have the depth and nuance of others, but it’s something i have thought and researched a lot about, so i hope it will suffice!

under the cut i go into some brief religious context, followed by how this fits in with the scene in the powerplant alongside quotes pulled from the various books to underscore how pivotal the lashings were for sam. so, if you're looking for some unnecessarily deep analysis of sam and drake as religious paragons: look no further than under the cut!

pilate's court: a contextual debrief

for starters, what was the trial before pilate? in brief, it is as follows. in the christian gospels they refer to the final period before jesus' death as 'the passion'; or, 'the passion of jesus'. the passion includes jesus' entrance to jerusalem, his anointing, the last supper, his agony and arrest, for example. it does also include his trial before pilate, the governor of judaea.

this trial is what essentially preceded the denouncement of jesus before he was sent to be crucified. throughout the trial, much to pilate's confusion, jesus was silent, perhaps accepting his inevitable fate or not seeing reason to protest something when he knew he would never win. pilate, at first, didn't believe there to be enough reason to sentence jesus to death and, consequently, elected to flog him as punishment. the bible does not outright state the amount of lashings jesus received, but it is thought the number could have been 39 (due to jewish commands restricting the amount of flogs from surpassing 40).

and so jesus was lashed, and then he was sentenced to death. it is widely agreed that the punishments jesus endured represent him absorbing everyone's sin, seeing him become the icon of rebirth and allowing humans to start all over again.

so, i hear you ask... how does this relate to the drake and sam incident in the powerplant?

drake as judge, jury & executioner

as i mentioned before, i'm not here to say that sam and drake are direct reflections of jesus and pilate. quite the opposite is true, really, and it is more the themes rather than the behaviours and characteristics that tie them together with this gospel. the theory and symbolism behind the trial before pilate can apply in a somewhat inverted way; sam is whipped though he doesn't necessarily die (more on that later), and drake isn't necessarily trying to find ways to punish sam without killing him as pilate was for jesus. drake wants sam dead and, had brianna not interfered when she did, he probably would have killed him. the events at the powerplant are not a complete mirror image of the trial but are, rather, foils to it.

the lashing of sam sees drake attempting to denounce all the perdido beach kids, trying to assert a specific way of thinking over the whole fayz. whether that be the beliefs of caine and the coates clan or the legislation of the gaiaphage is up for debate, but he is still decidedly torturing sam in response to disagreeing with the word he is spreading and the way he is leading. in the same way the roman crowds saw jesus’ behaviours as undermining the king ceasar, drake is acting out as he sees sam undermining his own personal king.

in terms of the text, this all occurs within hunger. however, before diving into that, i'm flashing forward to plague for an interesting excerpt from a conversation between brittany and astrid. it is, in fact, the very passage that got me thinking about all this to start with:

here we have a direct reference to pilate in the books themselves! how crazy is that? pay attention here to the specifics of "and pilate... to crucify him so that he might redeem us." if, in this instance, we are perceiving sam as a jesus-emblem, what brittany is essentially saying here is that sam needs to be punished for hope he might redeem all people. all the perdido beach kids, all the fayz inhabitants.

sam stands to be the symbol for all those who follow him. he is a leader, first and foremost, but he is at base level the most direct representation of all the lives he, begrudgingly, protects. sam is a microcosmic perdido beach resident while also being one of the most powerful mutants. see, then, how jesus is said to represent all despite being the son of god.

the lashing of sam kickstarts the redemption of the fayz kids, even so early into the book series. this happens in hunger, before any of the real horrors begin, but it is in this scene when the tides perhaps turn and the chance of a tunnel out of here manifests within sam's mind. the lashing is part of the passion of jesus, or the passion of sam, and as a result it sets him on a different path that places him in the mindset to understand that murdering drake is something which must happen in order for the barrier to come down. even if he doesn't quite have the foresight to see it at the time - perhaps more focussed on the murder angle rather than the reason - the seeds for drake's death are set in motion right here at the end of hunger.

just to contextualise the whipping within the timeline of the book. it starts halfway through chapter thirty-seven, with 1 hour and 6 minutes before the climax of the novel. brianna appears at the end of the chapter. thirty-eight sees us with 53 minutes later. so, with that knowledge, we can assume that the lashing lasted, at most, thirteen minutes. brianna administers the morphine packet within this chapter, too.

so, after about fifteen minutes since the lashings began he gets his first pain medicine. in thirty-nine (47 minutes) he wasn't feeling particularly intense pain as he was starting to hallucinate. at 33 minutes, he is still under morphine but is once again in pain. note: 33 minutes is when he first declares his intent to take a life. this is, obviously, a very instrumental part of sam's character arc. when he goes from seeing killing as something to be done only as mercy, to put someone out of their misery, to something that is to be done to avenge.

sam notes that the morphine is wearing off with 7 minutes left. so, with all this textual information in place, we can determine that he underwent torture for approximately thirteen minutes, and saw the pain mostly off with a dose of morphine that lasted 46 minutes. it's important to note also, i think, that this lashing happens concurrently with the human crew hunting and essentially sentencing hunter to death in the church.

it is interesting that two heavily religious events are happening at the same time, especially as the events are both underscored by the overarching sense of sacrifice, lawfulness and establishing dominance. the human crew are wanting to metaphorically crucify hunter while drake is flogging sam: they both want to be the power in charge, and they do so without taking into account any jury or justice. they act singularly, for their own gain.

the first 'death' of sam temple

now, earlier up, i mentioned that sam "doesn't necessarily die". he is, after all, not crucified or murdered in any way, he is just flogged. however, i believe that he was fundamentally changed after his encounter with drake, and while he didn't perhaps die physically he did die mentally.

he was on the brink of real death, all but bleeding out on the powerplant floor, and spent at least 46 minutes in a sort of purgatory state where he was hallucinating his better moments in life and wondering if he was going to make it. under the effects of morphine he sees the school bus incident, perhaps a demonstration of him walking towards the light before he awakes and finds himself back in the powerplant.

the lashing of sam is unequivocally the worst experience he endures in his time in the fayz. the worst experience of his whole life, something that shifts his entire perspective of not only drake but also the type of pain he can endure. the memory of it lasts even through light:

even after everything - four more whole books of action - nothing lives up to or usurps the agony of his lashing in the powerplant. it does not kill him, but it kills his soul. similarly to how the darkness kills lana and sucks the light from her life, sam's experience with drake does the same for him.

taking this back to the gospels, then, jesus is battered and bruised when he gets to the crucifix and, as a result, doesn't last long up there. sam is similarly battered and bruised, literally on his last legs of life after drake is done with him. brianna is able to come and administer the morphine and bring him back to physical life, but he is psychologically different after the whippings. jesus's trial before pilate is a distinctive turning point in christian theology; it is where he essentially admits to his fate, refuses to put up a fight, and leaves the ending of his life in the hands of pilate. he understands that his people have given up on him, that he has lost the crown of king of the jews, that he has been so betrayed by those closest to him. and, yet, in the aftermath of the trial and even after the crucifixtion and rebirth, jesus is different. the world is different. it turns into a place where a better ending rests at the end of all the trials and tribulations.

sam accepts his fate. sam understands that he is losing control of perdido beach. if drake wasn't the one to beat him down, the human crew probably would've tried to at some point. in this analogy where drake is a twisted version of pilate, the human crew are perhaps the crowd outside the temple who are calling for the death of jesus; the death of sam. for fifty-nine minutes sam was reduced to nothing but a boy bruised. he was no longer a four-bar mutant, he had no use of his hands, and he was no longer school bus sam either. he was just sam temple, a fifteen-year-old kid dying on the floor at the hands of someone who took it upon themselves to play judge over his life. jesus, in his trial, became the same thing. just a person enduring the worst sort of torture. god couldn't save him, didn't save him, nor did his people or his reputation or his powers.

the powerplant scene puts the fayz over the precipice. it sends drake down a path from which he never recovers, and it pushes sam to the brink of something he almost doesn't save himself from. it sets in stone that sam will come back - stronger - and those who put him through the agony will repent for what they did. in such a short extract, MG essentially plots out the ending of their relationship: sam will prosper while drake will die.

so, overall

i could expand on this entire thing further because, as i said before, there is such an astonishing amount of overlapping religious theology in these texts that it's impossible to sum them all up in one go. but i like to think of this powerplant moment as an opening, as something thematically intrinsic in the way the rest of the novels work out. it's an instance which can be explored even more if one is to bring caine into the narrative too, and consider sam/caine as twin versions of jesus/judas. which doesn't even take into consideration the very on-the-nose naming of them as sam and david and the way that gospel plays into the whole series, too.

i could even bring in one of my favourite pieces of artwork, the angels hovering over the body of christ in the sepulchre by william blake, and perhaps analyse how the angels are symbolic of drake/brittany in later novels, how their constant back and forth as they oversee the rebirth of sam as he conquers them, and the fayz.

anyway… gone is crazy detailed when you look at it through these sorts of theological lenses. i think, to a certain extent, some of the overlaps must be intentional. the fayz is very much a microcosm of particular religions, of the way gods contend against each other and leaders prevail against crowds of opposition.

either way, to conclude: the meeting between drake and sam in the powerplant greatly mirrors the trial of jesus before pilate, just before his crucifixtion. it perhaps represents how sam is forced to shoulder the sins and the misgivings of the perdido beach kids in order to see through to a way of beating the darkness and freeing them from the barrier. though neither drake or sam are perfect reflections of pilate and jesus respectively, the way their actions correspond to and follow those of the gospels brings to surface really interesting observations about the ways the characters and their fates are almost predetermined, how you can see how the books will end even from only the second one in the series.

[oathofkaslana]

guys guys guys. i have 103 wishes rn and 4 starglitter which means i could easily get a free wish from that and i havent finished the fayz trial event yet and there has to be another event in this patch and w the dailies.... and i havent finished explorin g or doing any quests in chenyu vale yet bc im saving it for arle and i still have a bunch of unclaimed character gifts from teapot..............

[gone-series-orchid]

i still really love my idea of astrid being sent to a catholic boarding school by her parents once the fayz ends. like after 5 months of undergoing court trials and media interviews and doctors’ appointments and brief bittersweet moments where she can just enjoy sam’s company, her parents just whisk her off to a fairly secluded boarding academy. now suddenly she realizes is little agency she has over her life now that her parents are back and how much she resents the expectations put on her to uphold her dormant (if not entirely nonexistent) faith. she’d be far away from everything she’d ever known—her parents, her boyfriend, other fayz survivors—and would have to forge a new resilience in order to bear the petty trials of religious high school while drafting her novel about the fayz and thus reliving/marinating in the trauma that started it all. bonus points if she left for school right after lp’s funeral 😭

[genshin-impact-updates]

"Rolling Crossfire" Event: Turret Shooting Experiments

〓Event Duration〓

2024/04/01 10:00:00 – 2024/04/11 03:59:59

〓Event Rewards〓

〓Eligibility〓

Adventure Rank 20 or above

And complete Archon Quest Prologue: Act III "Song of the Dragon and Freedom"

〓Event Details〓

● A new stage will unlock each day for the first five days after the event starts. Score a certain number of points in the previous stage to open the following one.

● You must control the turret remotely and defeat as many of the endless hordes of Slimes that show up as possible to earn more points.

● Reach specific score milestones to obtain Primogems, Hero's Wit, Weapon Ascension Materials, Sanctifying Unction, Mystic Enhancement Ore, Mora, and other rewards.

[lifblogs]

asks 1 and 17 for the year book asks?

1. How many books did you read this year?

58

17. Top five books of the year?

Sorry that a lot of these are parts of series, or the final book in a series.

1. Discordia by Kristyn Merbeth - Scorpia is finally back among the stars, far away from the memories of the war she and her family started—and ended—on Nibiru. Her first order as captain of the Memoria is to keep her crew safe, and she is all too happy not to get involved in dangerous political games for once.

Corvus is haunted by what he experienced at the hands of the Titan attack, and he's just as eager for a new beginning. He knows that not all Titans are built for war, and that the system can find peace, even as Deva and Pax begin to rattle their sabers.

Though the Kaisers may be responsible for diverting a multi-planet war, the planetary leaders are wary of the knowledge they hold. Better to lock them up and keep their dark secrets hidden. But the Kaisers are the only ones who know the truth about the threat of the ancient world-ending alien weapons rooted in each planet—and they may be the only ones who can save the system from total annihilation.

2. Light by Michael Grant - All eyes are on Perdido Beach. The barrier wall is now as clear as glass and life in the FAYZ is visible for the entire outside world to see. Life inside the dome remains a constant battle and the Darkness, away from watchful eyes, grows and grows . . . The society that Sam and Astrid have struggled so hard to build is about to be shattered for good. It's the end of the FAYZ. But who will survive to see the light of day?

3. Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan - Now ruling Tear, Andor, and Caemlyn, among other nations, Rand is recruiting all men capable of channeling to be trained as his Asha'man soldiers. The warrior Aiel clans have pledged loyalty to Rand, acknowledging him as their chief of chiefs, even though the Shaido Aiel remain a threat.

Split into two factions, the Aes Sedai of the White Tower and their rebel counterparts both seek to ally themselves with the Dragon Reborn. Rand knows all too well the manipulative nature of the Aes Sedai, no matter which side of their internal war they stand upon. But even he cannot predict just how desperate, cruel, and treacherous they can be.

And in the shadows, the Forsaken and the Dark One are conjuring even more chaos...

4. A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson - Rand al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn, is ready to fulfill his destiny. To defeat the enemy that threatens them all, he must convince his reluctant allies that his plan—as foolhardyand dangerous as it appears—is their only chance to stop the Dark One’s ascension and secure a lasting peace. But if Rand’s course of action fails, the world will be engulfed in shadow.

Across the land, Mat, Perrin, and Egwene engage in battle with Shadowspawn, Trollocs, Darkfriends, and other creatures of the Blight. Sacrifices are made, lives are lost, but victory is unassured. For when Rand confronts the Dark One in Shayol Ghul, he is bombarded with conflicting visions of the future that reveal there is more at stake for humanity than winning the war.

5. The Sunbearer Trials by Aiden Thomas - As each new decade begins, the Sun’s power must be replenished so that Sol can keep traveling along the sky and keep the chaotic Obsidian gods at bay. Sol selects ten of the most worthy semidioses to compete in the Sunbearer Trials. The winner carries light and life to all the temples of Reino del Sol, but the loser has the greatest honor of all―they will be sacrificed to Sol, their body melted down to refuel the Sun Stones, protecting the world for another ten years.

Teo, a seventeen-year-old Jade semidiós and the trans son of the goddess of birds, isn't worried about the Trials . . . at least, not for himself. His best friend, Niya is a Gold semidiós and a shoo-in for the Trials, and while he trusts her abilities, the odds of becoming the sacrifice is one-in-ten.

But then, for the first time in over a century, the impossible happens. Sol chooses not one, but two Jade competitors. Teo, and Xio, the thirteen-year-old child of the god of bad luck. Now they must compete in five trials against Gold opponents who are more powerful and better trained. Worst of all, Teo’s annoyingly handsome ex-best friend and famous semidiós Hero, Aurelio is favored to win. Teo is determined to get himself and his friends through the trials unscathed―for fame, glory, and their own survival.

(My other favorites are Jennifer L. Armentrout’s series Blood and Ash, and Flesh and Fire.)

END OF THE YEAR BOOK ASKS

[trashcanwithsprinkles]

Did you get to play the chasm event? If so, what did you think about it?

my dude (genderneutral) i've played all events since unreconciled, of course i got to play the chasm event. i think i remember liking it? i like all combat events tbh, they'd have to do something like the last fayz trials to make me not like a combat event so 🤷‍♂️

but since idk why y'all would want my opinion on a singular random combat event i'm assuming you were asking about the actual storyline? if so first off that was not the event, that was an archon quest. an interlude, to be precise. like- the itto shinobu yelan xiao yanfei shenanigans were not time limited. that was not the event, it just happened to release with the event in tandem

as for the actual story of the archon quest, i really liked it. i like all liyue lore, and we'd been waiting for the chasm for so long, so it was really nice to finally have it. i was also really hoping we'd actually get a bosacius and/or missing yaksha mention (back then we had no confirmation they were the same as far as i recall), so the lore parts absolutely delivered. i love itto and my girls shinobu and yanfei, and yelan turned out to be kinda nice as well so the cast had no duds. always great to see xiao and zhongli, too

this is also the quest that finally gave us more yaksha lore so it's probably among the most lore-important quests we've had. not THE most important, of course, but it's up there, even moreso considering there's no dain to be found. also my main interest in this game is liyue lore so that ranks it even higher hahah

[scarletooyoroi]

You know. There's this thing that Genshin does that I love to bits (but hate when it's tucked into events) where situations you encounter can collaborate with some myth/length that works into Teyvat mythos. Remembering that old Fayz trials event and that special ability the potions formed that bordered to a curse, I got to see in one of the gathered stories of a possible connection.

In my head, things like this only add truth to the things that were possible.

Excerpts from 'A Thousand Nights.'

And how it players virtually one for one to this. However, the potion itself is a momentarily acting formula, and naturally our characters would have bodies better suited to deal with such a price.

The man who made this deal with the Jinni however was just fucked. Basically, holding a solution that he has no built experience to truly handle.

From 'Fayz Trials.'

In short I'm pretty damn sure a lot of these books within the game are giving 'spoilers' for the lore heavy for a ton of instances/scenes/moments ahead in the game.

Not just for locations, but for actual characters as well. That is if the whole deal with Irminsul work arounds from 3.3 has anything to say about that.

[rubys-domain]

i did the crimson witch and clam domains. the former is basically the thundering fury domain except no electro allowed. those two domains got some weird beef going on or smth. (edit: i was a dumbass and forgot that the tf domain actually wants pyro. so instead of mutual passive-aggression, it's more like the cw domain wants nothing to do with the tf domain and the tf domain is like 'nuuuu pls love me back ;-; '.) and clam... oh boy. to get the healer artifacts you need a team with good healing... sounds perfectly logical...

i also did the event minigames. i thought spino blaster was gonna be fun, but it feels kinda clunky to me. i'm a little disappointed ngl. the flying fox thing was... okay..... i found it a little boring tbh. then we have the combat domain which is always my least favorite part of any event. honestly the only one i liked was the finchball thing. and how the person in charge of it was just way too enthusiastic about sharing the cuteness of finches with the world. that actually managed to get a chuckle out of me. plus it's pretty easy so you can focus on looking at the cute lil birbs.

at first i thought i wasn't gonna enjoy the parade of providence minigames because 'ugh the akademiya's hosting it i can't imagine anything fun out of that'. and then proceed to have a grand old time with them. (except for the combat one of course. it doesn't matter what kind of crazy buffs they give; there's just nothing in the world that will convince me to like combat events. except if it's fayz trials and i get to use albedo. the custom domain event was pretty cool but i don't really count that because it's not solely about combat.) more than anything though, i just really want the rtawahist astrolabe minigame back. i really liked that one. it was chill, satisfying, and the aesthetics were perfect. the evermotion mechanical paintings in the tcg event were alright and scratched similar itches. but i'm pretty meh on steampunk and the last pic being the tandoori chicken card was a letdown. i mean i guess it wouldn't make lore sense if it was the vanarana card because people not in touch with their inner child or whatever shouldn't be able to see them, let alone know what the place is. but the vanarana card does exist, and the paintings are all card images which is what makes them fit in the tcg event at all so... idk. all the tandoori chicken painting is good for is if you're trying to make a restaurant in your teapot and you want some kind of signboard. which fair enough, but I still would've preferred the vanarana image instead.