zurvan: The divine bird Simurgh drank the Amrita and mixed her Khvarena with the water's essence, thus creating countless beings.

it was not explained what amrita is, but if it drank “the water’s essence”, i assume it is some form of primordial water?

apparently they’re the only form with sentience, and their power is from amrita. so they are essentially like fontaine citizens who are made of primordial sea water?

reading through the quest dialogue before i continue this quest (yes, i haven’t finished it), i noticed that primordial water was mentioned.

according to sorush, the divine bird simurgh drank primordial water left by their god (who?), and transformed herself into khvarena (reminder to me: a type of energy) of all kinds…

i just… spoiled the whole world quest for myself after reading his wiki… orz

wait, are you saying the NPC nagarjuna (the vijnanapati) is around 500 years old? because he fought alongside the divine bird’s heir… to do the rite of chin at and put an end to the calamity?

unless you’re saying that the calamity was over a long stretch of time… confused…

wait, are you saying the NPC nagarjuna (the vijnanapati) is around 500 years old? because he fought alongside the divine bird’s heir… to do the rite of chinvat and put an end to the calamity?

unless you’re saying that the calamity was over a long stretch of time… confused…

edit: wait i realised i misread the name of the npc. it’s nasejuna. nagarjuna is probably really old (and dead)

[ spoilers — not under the cut. please scroll by ]

oh! i really like the story between chenee and frejus during this event. i think it’s also cool how they explicitly stated frejus is around 30 (or exactly 30).

the fact that frejus saved chenee during that one mission, taking the bullet for her… and in turn she plays around with his drunk-lie about rejecting the research institute 3 times… yet the irony is that frejus thinks she’s genuine… i love it, haha. the situation is so funny to me. bookmarking this because i like them.

reading through the quest dialogue before i continue this quest (yes, i haven’t finished it), i noticed that primordial water was mentioned.

according to sorush, the divine bird simurgh drank primordial water left by their god (who?), and transformed herself into khvarena (reminder to me: a type of energy) of all kinds…

in MY opinion... i think that aside from being a diversion tactic (to make sure the fatui dont find out about the primordial sea), wrio threatening lyney could have also been him subtly checking on the dynamic between arlecchino and the house of the hearth orphans.

like wrio knows manipulative adults Pretty Well, and the fact that he knows the fatui sent orphaned "children" undercover instead of grown agents already tripped alarms in his head.

Wriothesley: Mr. Lyney, the cards are stacked against you right now. Miss Lynette is in my hands, and Mr. Freminet is still slowly being pickled out there in the brine. You know just as well as I that he cannot last out there forever. Wriothesley: You need do but one thing to guarantee their safety. I would like you to contact your superior, and ideally invite her over for a cup of tea with me. Lyney: You want to see "Father"? Ha, but why should she bother giving you an audience? Wriothesley: Well, if she cares for the well-being of her dearest children, she should have plenty of motivation to join me for a parents' evening. Wriothesley: I've heard that the bonds between the members of the House of the Hearth are like the bonds of family. I don't see why she would refuse.

(emphasis mine)

"call your parental figure or your siblings will be in danger" would be a relatively easy decision to make if your parental figure... yknow... cared about you. but lyney insists that arlecchino shouldn't be involved in this and breaks from the stress of possibly losing his siblings. which makes ME think like... how much value does arlecchino place in the orphans if lyney refuses to "trouble" her with possible imminent torture or DEATH.

Lyney: …Was this the extent of your master plan to get to "Father"? No matter how much pressure you may put on me, I won't allow you to use us to blackmail her. Lyney: I… I shouldn't ask "Father" to do anything because of us…

(emphasis mine)

like... lyney... if she really cared about you she would willingly help you... you know...

and yes later on arlecchino is like Well he shouldve called me :/ but its way easier to say that after the fact.

The Knave: [...] It's unfortunate that Lyney's so eager to prove himself that he can't learn to rely on others... including me.

i mean lyney came to rely on the traveler pretty easily..? i think deep down he doesn't trust arlecchino.

so wrio noticed that something wasn't right pretty quickly, and could have also set this up as a sort of test - both for him, and for lyney - in a way - to take a better look at the dynamic between arlecchino and the siblings.

basically i think that specific part of the archon quest shows us that the house of hearth isn't a Found Family Despite All Odds situation and definitely has something much darker (aside from, you know. the orphans basically being FATUI AGENTS). i keep saying this but i think the fact that the previous head of the orphanage was "even worse" means that traumatized children/teens/young adults can easily justify a different kind of abuse as "well at least it isn't (x) which is even worse!" and based on the siblings' profile stories, it seems arlecchino leans more towards emotional manipulation/neglect, which, again, if compared to the physical abuse from the previous head, can be pretty easy to justify in the eyes of already traumatized and vulnerable people.

Dish description for Anything Goes: (later called ‘Right At Home’ by Amber.

A simple dish filled with rich flavours straight from the wok, made from stir-fried Ham, Bird Eggs, Rice, and all manner of other ingredients.

They say that the myriad recipes for fried rice have resulted in it being considered the first choice for those who don’t know what to eat at the moment.

Of note is the fact that this simple dish is, in truth, quite the comprehensive test of a chef’s capabilities. Only skill and will, they say, will get you a dish that brings back memories of home.

the dish description for Trembling Strings and Rushing Reeds:

A stir-fried dish made from a variety of meats that has layers, even entire floors of flavour.

Simple ingredients, unique creativity, and an intricate cooking process make this an unparalleled delicacy fit for any gourmet seeking the very finest of flavours. They say in Liyue that “lutes have five strings and flutes have seven apertures,” and that this dish is correspondingly made with five meats and seven side dishes. That said, it is doubtful that any chef could make a dish as complicated as the story claims…

dish description of The Palace Jewels:

A fresh dish cooked using Shrimp Meat, Crab Roe, Salt, and Snapdragon.

People say of this dish: “Crab Roe like the pearls of gold, shrimp meat like the chunks of jade.” The mild flavours of this dish make it suited to those who want to taste the essential flavour of seafood.

Some have rated this dish as such: “What do you get when you put crab on shrimp, and added freshness onto freshness? A sumptuous and flavourful dish! The tenderness of the shrimp and the crab flavour’s glutinous grains grant it freshness, deliciousness, and the perfect mouthfeel! The crab roe shines brighter than gold, and the shrimp glimmers like gems, forming a jewelled table fit for a palace!”

lol so in the cooking event (i didn’t even know we’ll have it), i think lyney actually mentioned that lynette dove into the food because she saw it was fish? i am playing in eng dub, so i was a bit confused why i heard 鱼 but there was no mention of fish, haha.

rewatched the last scene for this year's lantern rite, saw hu tao's super cute dance to the flying kites and her overall enthusiasm, remembered how this event centered on gaming, remembered the previous reblogged about hu tao and gaming's dynamic, and i can't stop thinking about them right now.

random but have you thought abt gaming and hutao?

funny story anon, when I was writing ga-ming's fake voicelines and needed to give him more characters to talk about, I was considering adding a hu tao voiceline, but decided against it because I didn't really see a reason for them to meet (besides via friends (new liyue 6ang addition?!?!?!)). lowkey I now feel validated bc they don't have any in-game voicelines abt each other, but this would be a very boring ask if it just stopped here lol.

there's something to be said about gaming and hu tao's family baggage vs their cheerful external demeanor vs both doing a job that isn't super well received (?) by people in liyue harbor. but hu tao leans into her eccentricities a lot more while gaming is on the 'likeable by everyone' grind LOL also the dad similarities might increase if we ever get 76th funeral parlor director lore: hu tao's parents have been conspicuously missing forever, where did genshin put them? an interesting possibility would be if the 76th somehow split off from the family trade and subsequently got wiped from the family tree bc of ideological diffs (like ht's beef with baizhu), which could increase gaming and hu tao's possible shared father(?) troubles. but besides that I feel like there's not too much similarity there. They're both enthusiastic outward facing individuals, but idk if they'd have an interesting dynamic if they met.*

Although, you know that voiceline where hu tao does a magic trick and makes a butterfly of fire? and also how she plays with those lion statues outside the ministry of civil affairs? those two things would be straight up gamings alley ngl like he'd be so down for that kind of whimsy and playfulness. also hu tao would be a good candidate for a 2nd lion dance partner. she'd be completely down for doing odd jobs and this is absolutely a fun odd job, at least until she gets tired of it or has to focus on official business lol. idt she's the type to work hard at it; she's just there to try it out because it looked cool but gaming appreciates the enthusiasm regardless. would request to be the lions head in order to lunge at people and also pick greens. also there's potential for a gaming yun jin xingqiu hu tao tea appreciation club

oh also i think smth underrated abt hu tao is how shes like cheery and eccentric but takes her job seriously and has unidentifiable but occasionally present baggage .... which i already mentioned before is similar to how 75% of gm's voicelines are cheery, and then the other 25% is emotional conflict. idk! maybe under the right conditions, they could open up to each other and sympathize

*addendum: imo, hu tao has mostly moved on from her grief over her grandfather's death, and she doesn't have any regrets about the state of their relationship when he passed away, since they were pretty close and never on bad terms. My personal hc is that she still has some things she wished she said, ie. sincere thoughts and feelings from the heart that she usually avoids talking about (she would say "nice speech, but that kind of killed the mood" if someone made one of those anime protag power of friendship monologues). in my head, her grandpa taught her everything about death and funeral customs, played with her/listened to her poetry, pretended to go along w her pranks, and was in general a very loving person, but I don't think hu tao ever explicitly told him "I love you" before he died. she canonically tried to find him right after he passed away but knew that he wouldn't be there. by now i think she's made peace with his death, but still has a certain wistfulness about things she didn't think of saying. and then on the flip side, if ga-ming could see his mom again, he'd probably spend a whole day talking to her i think. he's also not someone to get drunk on grief or regrets, but i don't think he's quite gotten over it completely, and his rocky relationship with his father (before lantern rite 2024) makes this more emotional idk. not sure where I'm going with this, but maybe hu tao would be able to talk him through a bit of this messiness and urge him to simply continue with his own life. or show him that his mother was not at the border, perhaps never lingered there, because she didnt think there was any unfinished business with him or his father that she needed to worry about. the annoying thing about death is that even if the dead person was free of regrets, those who are still living will still miss them. maybe both gaming and hu tao would be able to understand that and/or sympathize with it. or maybe they'd just be silly together who knows, up to you

edit: it'd also be so funny to have gaming call hu tao "boss hu" 胡老板～～～～～～～

There’s this one part I really loved in Yun Jin’s character story 4:

The section talks about how the Opera Troupe’s fans used to call her grandfather Sir Yun (not a straight translation from云先生, Yun-xiangsheng) and how in present-day after a performance, a fan also referred to Yun Jin herself as xiansheng because of her skilled performance. Someone asks how could a young woman be called xiansheng, and Yun Jin basically says that older, more knowledgable people are referred to as such, but not all knowable people are old, and women can be knowledgable as well. Then she drops this line:

「先生您快人快语，称得上先生，年轻女子答得上您的问，自然也配称一声先生才是。」

(Official translation edited to include some honourifics)

"You [sir] are quick in mind and speech, and are thus qualified to be called Sir. I [a young woman] have answered your eminent question — [naturally] that also makes me [qualified to be called] a Sir."

YUN JIIIIIIIN😭😭 From her character concept video it was revealed that the team “referred to many literary works in history — women who are both accomplished and have their own ideas such as Hua Mulan, Mu Guiying, Liang Hongyu”

Note about the 先生(xiansheng) honourific: it’s used for academics and learned people older than oneself, and is a gender-neutral honorific (like Professor or Doctor in western culture)! Though in the English version, Yun-xiansheng was localized as “Ms. Yun” (Zhongli’s Good Evening voiceline) and “Sir Yun” (Yun Jin Character Story 4) which loses the meaning a bit.

are we just going to forget olaf, who was from 300 years ago. why does this strike a chord with me (a person who has the knowledge of genshin’s future storyline). maybe it’s also because i’ve been watching frieren so… either way. i’ll think about this. hopefully they use olaf for something in the future.

genshin is actually so funny in chinese.

in xiangling’s story quest, the name of brook’s dish is humorously long (野猪王在争夺地盘的决斗后负伤的胜者刚刚长好的那块新鲜嫩肉) but the english just translated it to (pork chops so fresh they were practically still grunting). there is still humour with word play, but i think the longer name humour landed better, hahahahah.

I’m tired of people acting like Zhongli is a serious and chill guy who would never cause problems on purpose as if he isn’t one of the biggest menaces out of the Seven. He used to throw mountains at Venti for annoying him. He, the god of history, starts fights among historians for shits and giggles. He tried to gaslight the Traveler into thinking he was totally not at the Chasm guys really Aether/Lumine you must be seeing things maybe you should go see Baizhu. When Qiqi wanted “Cocogoat” milk he was like “Oh yeah sure totally let’s go look for it” knowing damn well it was a wild goose chase. He made the Traveler sing to a flower and then was like “Oh would you look at that” when a Whooperflower jumped out to maul them. I love him. He’s like a cat pushing things off the counter to see how people react. I would pay to see him interact directly with Neuvillette because I know for a fact he’d get on that man’s nerves and argue about water tasting just to feel something. Furina used freedom from godhood to take a nap and Zhongli used it to give psychic damage to anyone who talks to him longer than 5 minutes. Iconic.

i really like chevereuse. will try to devour her character soon. the quest was so entertaining even if it started out a little slow.