genshin impact abyss

august | he/ him | this is a sideblog | many, many spoilers I post about my adventures and misadventures in genshin impact

[genshin-djinn]

Lantern Rite: my thoughts on act 3 + the event as a whole

xiao is short

act 3

All in all, the third act of the Lantern Rite event was... disappointing.

My hopes were high after Act 2. We’d finally gotten a decent Xiao trial and we got to see perfect trustworthy man Kaeya (and got a little peek at how deep his information network really goes. I was not expecting Nimrod to be working with Kaeya). We were almost at the lantern rite.

And then Act 3 started. And it was pretty good, and we saw a pretty cutscene that we already saw multiple times in the lantern rite trailers, and then I went to the teleport waypoint to check on Xiao, and then I realized that oh yeah that’s it. The end.

Act 3 felt very incomplete and very, very short. The best part was the cutscene, and even that was something that I’d already seen multiple times. I know we’ll probably get a short epilogue in a few days where we meet up with Xiao, but this just felt like the first half of a full Act 3. It’s slightly better than the trash story that Dragonspine had, but at least we got to see three playable characters in Dragonspine... a full one more than the two playable characters we saw during the entire Lantern Rite.

the whole event

This brings me to the biggest problem I have with the Lantern Rite as an event— it features zero playable characters in its questioned besides Xiao during the main storyline and a brief cameo by Kaeya. The Lantern Rite is a giant festival for the whole of Liyue. Where is Liyue’s most famous celebrity chef? Where is Liyue’s favorite beloved ship captain? Where are two of the the leaders of Liyue????

It really irks me when Genshin shows that it is capable of good storylines during short quests while completely underusing the characters that people play for in the creation of these quests. I really enjoyed most of the Lantern Rite Tales stories, especially the one with Yanxiao and Jiangxue (Jiangxue is very mysterious, Yanxiao is adorably concerned) and the one with the old man from Qingce with dementia (ouch).

But why are all of these quests all featuring side characters, some of whom I would not notice disappear from the game, and not main characters, all of whom I am very attached to? If Qiqi was the one who told me to get one specific single Qingxin flower from a very specific location, I’d accept it (rather than having an aneurysm while climbing that hell cliff in Qingce after a random NPC I don’t care about told me to do so). If Ningguang was the one who asked me to guard a trade balloon, I’d agree to instead of trying to attack an NPC. If Xingqiu was the poet who got into an argument with Veneer, I’d cheer him on and be delighted when he wins over the Qingce children.

These missing main characters make Mihoyo seem very lazy and very cheap considering all they’d have to do to make main characters give out these exact same quests would be tweak the dialogue and have the VAs record a few new voicelines. It feels like they genuinely only care about playable characters existing in their world if they’re trying to build up hype for said character. We haven’t gotten a single new story quest that wasn’t for an on- banner five star character since before update 1.1.

Mihoyo seems to only give a shit about characters existing if they can use their quests to get more people to roll on their banners. The Lantern Rite event and especially Lantern Rite Tales is a huge illustration of this and it’s starting to piss me off and yes I will be writing a 5000 word essay about it in their next community questionnaire

as for the rest of the event: I have no opinion on tower defense, sometimes it’s fun and sometimes it’s annoying; I will always accept rewards from the Xiao Market; something is very suspicious about Qingce— one of the Lantern Rite Tales is the second time someone’s implied the village is not as good and stable as it seems to be; please give Jiangxue another quest I need to learn more about his past; Stand By Me woulda been a lot cooler if we could, you know, actually interact with the characters during the event

[genshin-djinn]

I decided to do a few 10- pulls on Xiao’s banner just for Diona and I am not disappointed with the results. She’s adorable and my orphaned sacrificial bow now has a home.

I am completely broke in Genshin— no mora, no fragile resin, no exp books— and have been desperately trying to get my bp up so I can level up my characters. I’m so broke that I can’t even drag Diona across the threshold to level 40. I’ll get 100k mora or so one minute and find I’m completely out the next after getting a few artifacts to +16. And let’s not even talk about Talents, they don’t exist anymore. please battle pass please save my soul

[genshin-djinn]

karenri’ahn duo

During Dain’s new world quest I took every opportunity I had to take pictures of him with Kaeya. Idk how or if they know each other, but they’re from the same country and they have the same pupils and the same diamond motif so I am banking on yes. Kaeya’s new idle animation could stab me and I’d thank him

[genshin-djinn]

I was aiming for WGS/ any catalyst/ any polearm with my latest Standard pity, but Keqing is so fun to play and I am delighted to have her. My brain knows that she’s way better for my current characters/ teams/ place in the game/ etc. than Qiqi, but I am ever so slightly disappointed that I am still loli- less. Diona please come home.

[genshin-djinn]

uncle tian:

me: aw, Zhongli, he hopes you’re happy and living freely! you don’t deserve this after what you did to Liyue Harbor

uncle tian:

me:... oh no, zhongli, he knows too much we have to kill him

[genshin-djinn]

adepti chilling

Apparently I can’t force Zhongli to interact with any of the other adepti so I took some pictures of them together instead

[genshin-djinn]

Sinae Unicornis Act 1

I went into Ganyu’s story quest with a low bar set for it to jump over. As long as it was better than Albedo’s, I wouldn’t be disappointed. And hey, I wasn’t. Not because the bar was low, but because this story quest was very fun.

Warning: this post contains major spoilers for the entirety of Ganyu’s story quest! If you haven’t played through the quest yet I would recommend not reading this post because there are lots of spoilers and some of it will not make any sense.

the characters

The characters were possibly my favorite part of Ganyu’s story quest. I absolutely love seeing playable characters and named NPCs during other characters’ story quests and Ganyu’s was full of them.

Firstly, we need to talk about the character who was unequivocally the most important NPC in Ganyu’s story quest... the Hydro Fatui Skirmisher. He was perfect and I love him. He just wanted to pick fresh berries on his morning off and ended up getting attacked by some randos who thought he was doing wrong just because of his loyalty to the Tsaritsa. The game’s been giving the Fatui NPCs a lot more personality as time goes on— they now have idle animations, voicelines, and some of them even have names— and I love it. This perfect hydro man was just the icing on the “sympathetic villains” cake.

Another awesome character featured in Ganyu’s story quest was my favor— uhhh, my second fa—- no, uhh.. one of my favorite adepti, Cloud Retainer. I want to see more of her. She’s fantastic. I’m really confused about her relationship with Ganyu in the past, because it sounds like she looked after Ganyu when the latter was a kid, but Zhongli says that Ganyu’s the Adeptus who’s been working for Rex Lapis for the longest. Maybe Cloud Retained knew Ganyu from before she made the contrast with Rex? I dunno. Her stories about Baby Ganyu were so fecking cute and revealed a little bit about Ganyu’s adorable past.

Another Adepti we saw in Sinae Unicornis was, in the words of Paimon, “that cold- hearted loner”, Xiao. It was nice to see a little corner of Xiao’s caring side— while he’s pretty blunt about it, he does want Ganyu to be happy and acknowledge both her Adepti and her human sides. It’s also pretty adorable to see Xiao caught off guard for a second— he isn’t quite sure what to do for Ganyu’s second trial, so he gets flustered and makes something up. It’s gonna be a real test not rolling for him during his banner, because the more I see of him the more attached I get.

The next character I desparately have to talk about was the real MVP of Sinae Unicornis, Uncle Tian! I was absolutely delighted to get backstory for the slightly sus fisherman who looks after Childish Jiang. It was so fun to hear an old man call Ganyu “onee- sama” in the Japanese dub,,,, and the idea that Tian’s known Ganyu since he was young enough to call her “older sister” is really cute. And kind of upsetting. More on that later. Now, *stares pointedly at Jiangxue*, if only we could get some backstory on another mysterious fisherman...

the combat

Ganyu’s story quest had a really nice balance of combat and story for me. The two trial run trials were well- designed to showcase Ganyu’s abilities.

Cloud Retainer’s trial was a lot harder than Xiao’s for me because I kinda suck at aiming, especially when my eyes kept drifting to the ticking timer above Ganyu’s head. But even though at one point I didn’t notice the correct path forwards for a solid 30 seconds, I still managed to finish the trial in one try. It was kinda difficult, but not too hard.

Xiao’s trial was a neat demo of Ganyu’s cryo abilities. Even though I refuse to roll on any banners until Hu Tao’s, she fit right into my team of Diluc, Xingqiu, Kaeya, and Zhongli. Ganyu in a team comp seems to reeeeally want Pyro and Hydro units with her, plus maybe a cryo user for the cryo damage boost inside her circle. She’s like Amber but way better.

Side note: I haven’t looked for any sort of meta info on Ganyu yet, but during her trial run her ult energy regeneration was really weird. It took her a long time to get her first ult up, but right after I used it her next ult was up off cooldown, and the ult after that was ready before her circle had even ended. Idk what’s going on there but her ult seems to do something with energy regen.

Ganyu

Sinae Unicornus showed us a lot about Ganyu.

Not that I knew anything about her before it.

Ganyu is a polite, kind, and respectful person. She overworks herself to the point of falling asleep standing up and likes eating Qingxin flowers. But her story quest shows another side of Ganyu— a side that’s learned a lot from being alive for thousands of years. Ganyu is incredibly good at her job and has picked up a lot of tricks over the millennia. She observes what those around her do and learns from them. She has a severe, cold side to her that makes her all the more efficient in her work. Ganyu’s is the second Adepti story quest we’ve gotten so far, and oh by the archons she and Zhongli are such great strategic players.

Ganyu is also lonely. She’s in between two worlds, and can’t be fully a part of either. When she’s with mortals, she’s an Adepti, and when she’s with Adepti, she’s a mortal. There’s nobody in the world that Ganyu knows of who is truly both and neither like she is. The mortals around her admire her, the Adepti around her seem to see her as young/ lower in rank than they are. So of course she would take solace in befriending Aether, someone who’s also not quite a mortal or a god.

In a way, Ganyu’s story quest almost ties into Albedo’s. They’re both “inhuman” in a way that isolates them from others and turns them into lonely individuals. This loneliness and isolation brings them, consciously or unconsciously, closer to Aether. This one similarity also brings attention to the differences between Albedo and Ganyu— Albedo is neither human nor god, while Ganyu is both.

I don’t know if it was intentional or not, but I think putting Ganyu’s story quest right after Albedo’s was a very nice touch.

ending thoughts

Sinae Unicornis was a very decent story quest. It was no Carmen Dei, but I’d say it was on the level of Jean’s and Mona’s. And,, ,,, it made me value Albedo’s story quest a tiny bit more. I love Ganyu, I think she’s adorable, and she seems like a pretty good versatile unit. She’s risen through the ranks of my favorite Genshin characters and is probably in the top 10. Despite all of these complements I will unfortunately not be rolling for her.

The next story quests we get shoooould be Xiao’s and Hu Tao’s (ofc I wouldn’t complain if Qiqi, Keqing, Fischl, Bennett, Barbara, Noelle, Sucrose, Chongyun, Diona, Xinyan, and Ningguang also got story quests...). I’m extremely excited to see Edgy Boy again and to finally meet my favorite funeral parlor owner. I’m also hyped for the events we’ll get before 1.3– hypostatic symphony and multiplayer Liben should be coming up soon. and then.... 1.3!

[genshin-djinn]

I like NPCwatching. I can’t tell if the artifact pose is a common pose in Teyvat or if the last guy is sorting his artifacts

[genshin-djinn]

I’m really enjoying the kamera.

[genshin-djinn]

happy birthday Zhongli! and a happy new year to whoever’s reading this!

[genshin-djinn]

somehow I managed to trigger this cutscene without making the fox run away. idk if the fox is bugged or if the cutscene started right before I would’ve startled it, but it made for some neat screenshots

no, I did not kill the fox. But I did ask Albedo if he was the one speaking hillichurlian; he made this expression of complete disappoimntment

[genshin-djinn]

This is an age of gods and monsters. I wish not for dominion; yet I cannot watch the common folk suffer.

as you might be able to guess my camera roll is full of this man,

[genshin-djinn]

Paimon and Albedo: did you rile up the Fatui and get them to attack us

Aether: *slightly shifts his bag full of 500 lieutenants insignias* who me why I would never what’s a Fatui

Albedo is normally so blank and emotionless; it’s fun to see him with a smirk on his face (especially considering he’s the reason the Fatui attacked them in the first place)

[genshin-djinn]

Princeps Cretaceus Act 1

he is a pretty, dangerous boy. perhaps a pretty dangerous boy.

general

I enjoyed Albedo’s quest for what it was— a Part 1 to the Festering Desire quests. It was fun, it was a good tutorial for Dragonspine, it was a nice introduction to Albedo’s slightly off “yes, I am a human” personality... but it felt extremely incomplete. I assume that Festering Desire will be what “completes” Princeps Cretaceus Act 1, and I really hope that players who join Genshin after Jan 2021 can have a chance to play through the Acts of Festering Desire.

Beyond that... Dragonspine is a neat region (post about that hopefully coming soon). Albedo’s JP voice is fantastic and so is his EN voice. The battle BGM in dragonspine is so good. [insert other complimentary things about Dragonspine here.]

albedo

As for Albedo himself... after initially watching Albedo’s character trailer I kinda thought “wow, this trailer doesn’t fit him at all”. But I was wrong and it does. Albedo is overall a rather blank and emotionless person but he can be incredibly (unintentionally) goofy in an endearing way— hoping that Aether has an extra organ, or that they have super vision, or that they can shatter cliffs using their sheer willpower.

Albedo’s morality is also rather odd in a way that’s sort of similar to Zhongli— he sees himself as separate from humans, and doesn’t quite know how they behave. Offering a stranger a suspicious drink ten minutes in to your friendship is not something a normal human would do, nor is bringing your new friend to a tall cliff and telling them to get to the bottom of it as fast as possible.

Albedo seems to see himself as one step removed from humans, and while this puts up multiple walls between him and his students (students - teacher, humans- nonhuman, idolizing - idolized) this also draws him to Aether in a way he doesn’t quiiiite admit in the quest. He likes Aether because they’re both inhuman, they’re both made up of matter that is not fully defined yet.

And Albedo is a very lonely person, because of these walls up between him and all of the humans he knows. Sucrose and Timaeus are his students; the citizens of Mondstadt are his admirers; and everyone, even his little sister Klee, is a human. Throughout his story quest he frequently asks Aether about things that make them much less “human” than the humans of Teyvat— having extra organs, having nonelemental superpowers, having inhuman skills. He seems almost disappointed that their skills are ordinary and theorizes that they’re unable to use their true powers on Teyvat.

It’s almost as if Albedo wants Aether to be inhuman in some way, because then they’ll be the same in their inhumanity. And then, maybe he won’t be so lonely anymore.

[genshin-djinn]

the Fatui and the Abyss Order: an interesting interaction

As I was wandering around the border between Mond and Dragonspine, I came across something very interesting going on at a few of the Fatui camps along the river.

The Fatui have taken several hillichurls prisoner and put them in wooden jail cells. There’s only one in this image, but there are more cells and more trapped hillichurls further down the river. The hillichurls will try to attack, but can’t escape from their wooden cells.

The natural next question is why the Fatui have these hillichurls held captive. It would be much easier just to kill the hillichurls, but they have purposefully not killed these ones and have instead put them in cages. They are specifically choosing to not kill the hillichurls.

If you’ve read the Genshin Impact webtoon, you probably know why.

As a recap for those who haven’t read the webcomic (you really should if you have the time! it’s full of lore abt characters from Mondstadt and some of the Fatui and you can read it for free online), throughout the plotline the Fatui (particularly one member named Dottore) have a special interest in human experimentation. It’s unclear as to what their goals are, but we know that they are able to manufacture Ruin Guards (despite not being the creators of the machines) and, in the manga, turn humans into Ruin- Guard like robot monsters. Dottore and his followers have murdered a number of children in another unknown sinister human experiment.

So, if I had to guess, there’s one reason the Fatui are keeping the hillichurls alive— so they can test them. Experiment on them. Figure out what makes them tick. Turn them into experiments.

And when you think about the history of these hillichurls, the story behind this little detail just gets even worse.

Hillichurls are implied to be humans who once lived in Karenri’ah, but were transformed into monsters during the Cataclysm. They have a language, social hierarchy, cooking, and different cultural groups. They are fascinated by masks, one rumor is that they wear masks because they cannot stand to see their reflections in the water. This suggests that while their minds have been altered by their monstrous transformation, hillichurls do remember some of what they once were. And they can’t stand what they have become.

And now the Fatui are taking them from the civilizations and tribes they’ve built up after the cataclysm and using them as experiments. The hillichurls will lead a tortured existence before being discarded and killed.

The final twist of irony in this situation is that Dottore and his followers are trying to replicate the level of scientific advancements that the city of Karenri’ah reached. They’re copying Karenri’ahn technology (Ruin Guards, Ruin Hunters) in an attempt to reach a new height beyond what Karenri’ah achieved before its destruction. Meanwhile, the descendants of the people who created that technology and that science are sitting in their labs being torturously experimented on.

Of course this is all just my interpretation of a random little detail in Genshin Impact. This could very well be completely wrong and maybe Fatui soldiers just like putting hillichurls in cages and poking them with sticks for fun. Thank you for reading!

[genshin-djinn]

the highest point in the world. the closest to celestia.

as I celebrated reaching the top of Dragonspine, it felt like something was watching me. The feeling only increased when I noticed the pillar’s style and one- sided frill. Why was it in Dragonspine? How did it end up here? Were the Celestian gods watching me, just as I warily eyed their castle?

[genshin-djinn]

In commemoration of the end of Zhongli’s banner here are some screenshots of him!

Zhongli is a mediocre unit and he needs a buff and another better buff after that, but archons am I glad I rolled him. He’s one of my favorite characters in Genshin and his design is absolutely fantastic. The moment I got Diluc, back during Venti’s banner, I resolved to save exclusively for Geo Archon Man and while that was a bit of a huge mistake, I love Zhongli as a character so much that I do not regret rolling for him. He is a trash unit. He is an adorable character. I love him.

I also rolled a handful of Xinyans, Chongyuns, and Razors on Zhongli’s banner. Here is how I feel about them...

Xinyan: I love her design, I hate her idle animation, I need to actually use her

Chongyun: he’s my go- to guy for fighting Pyro regisvine and some floors of abyss and that is about it. I feel kind of bad because he’s one of the first four star characters beyond the Original Four that I used a bunch at the start of the game

Razor: Adorable boy. I do not understand why, but he feels clunky to me. I genuinely don’t know why. I think I just don’t have a good command of his kit yet.

Coming up in less than 24 hours (uhh... probably) is the lovely Albedo’s banner. Al’s four stars are absolutely stacked and I would like to roll their constellations: Fischl (I want C4, I use her all the time, Oz Oz Oz Oz), Benny (I’m so broke on talent mats that I will accept any of his constellations except C6), and Sucrose (I want to start using her and her constellations will just encourage me to do so). However I am only 15 pulls away from soft pity and am very on the fence about Albedo. I’m praying to the Gacha gods that he’s either an excellent support or I get Jean or Qiqi on pity.