thoughts astray like clouds

chels · 25↑ · she/her 🎐 an archive of longform thoughts on yizhan, the hyv ecosystem, & amgc

[nepheia]

🍒

hello! i’m chels, your resident clown and poor juggler of 300 different interests. i’m more often over at @cityscape, where i tweet into the void and have shorter (but no less deranged) word hours ♡

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fandoms  ⟢  xiao zhan ∙ wang yibo ∙ yizhan ∙ honkai star rail type  ⟢  analysis ∙ fic ∙ ask ∙ letters ∙ personal

[nepheia]

idk if you remember me but i had sent a ask regarding me drifting away from yizhan a few months ago i just wanted to thank you again.

i talked with my friends and told them how i don't really ship them anymore and is more of a fan to only one of yz. it was nerve wracking but my friends took it much more easily than i expected. we found a way to still keep our rants to each other.

they joke about the ship to me still i jokingly share most delusional things that i know they don't even believe.

honestly thank you so much, your response have seriously helped me in letting the ship and one of them go. i was trying to hold onto them so hard that it had started to hurt me now i am in a more chill phase.

happy 2026 and hope you have a great year 🥰

omg hello anon of course i remember!! 💖

this is so, so lovely to hear ahhhhhhh i'm so glad you trusted your friends — and yourself! — enough to tell them how you were feeling, and that that was met in turn with people who treasured your friendship more than any fandom. that's how you know these friendships will outlast many, many things hehe.

thank you for trusting me, but you did all the work! i'm glad to have helped even in a small way ;v;

happy 2026 to you too! i hope this year is filled with only joyful things for you, and (because lunar new year is coming up) that good fortune will come galloping your way 🐎✨

[nepheia]

Hi, i’m not sure who else to talk to about this, so I’m sending this as an ask to you because I’ve seen some of your posts and the way you talk about your interests. I feel like you might have a perspective I’d really appreciate, a perspective that could help me.

What advice would you give to someone who no longer agrees with the choices their idol is making? For someone who’s now in the process of detaching, grieving, feeling deeply disappointed after years of loyalty, time, energy & money invested only to end up feeling overlooked and unacknowledged by the person they supported? When the idol has started to come across as selfish and ungrateful, almost like they’re biting the very hand that has fed them? 

What would you do if you were in my shoes? 

happy new year, anon! thank you for your kind words and for trusting me with these thoughts you've been having ♡ i hope 2026 has been kind to you so far. the end of the year is always super hectic for me, so i'm sorry that this took a while to get to!

truth be told, it's difficult for me to tell you what i would do, simply because i don't know what choices your idol has made, and i think my reaction would differ depending on what it is.

but the first thought that comes to mind is:

in order to deal with these emotions, i think it's important for you to first understand where they're coming from. and to do that, you need to honestly ask yourself: why do you feel disappointed? what do you mean by selfish?

maybe your idol has genuinely become an unlikeable person.

if they've been outright discriminatory towards anyone, especially a group of people you relate to;

if they've caught a bad case of celebrity disease and go around big-headed, acting like they've made it without giving credit to the village it took to support them;

if they've started associating with bad company;

if they're blatantly inconveniencing other people by being reckless;

if they're simply horsing around without caring about the consequences;

then i think it's entirely fair — healthy, even — for a fan to openly disagree with these choices if they no longer align with what you value. it's healthy because it means you're thinking for yourself and acknowledging that something may no longer have a place in your life, instead of being buoyed by the fandom herd mentality that so often pressures you into blindly supporting your idol, or risk being made to feel like a "bad fan".

maybe the both of you, like all things, have changed.

maybe you have changed as a person. your idol could've given you what you really needed at the point in your life where you came to know them, but the shape of this space is no longer the same.

maybe your idol has changed as a person too. maybe life has softened them. maybe life has made them harder. maybe the bright allure of stardom has simply faded away. maybe they realised they've given so much of themselves to the public eye that it brings them joy to turn their back on it, to put themselves first for once.

i talked about this in more detail here, but change always takes time to get used to because it's human nature to navigate it slowly. it feels like disappointment because you're so used to this person meaning this much to you, taking up this much space in your life, and now they no longer do. in this case, i think you simply need to give yourself the grace and time to accept that sometimes people simply outgrow each other.

but...

if you don't mind me saying...

judging by your choice of words — "loyalty, time, energy, money", "invested", "unacknowledged" — i get the feeling neither of these are really the case here. it sounds more like you may have loved them with the expectation of having that love returned.

i could be wrong about all of this, in which case, there probably isn't any need to read further! but if i'm right:

it may be a tough pill to swallow, but quite frankly, beyond that, idols owe you nothing for the time, energy, money, or loyalty that you've given them.

it's like... even if someone who likes you constantly showers you with gifts, takes you out to nice meals, plans a super elaborate confession, etc. you're still not obligated to say yes or accept their feelings just because they put in all that effort for you. it was given freely, after all.

an idol is a profession, not an identity! it is their job to make you feel like you should be giving them your time and energy and money. that's how stars survive.

the only thing idols owe anyone is the basic requirement for any job and their responsibility as a public figure, which is to a) do good work; b) stay humble and respectful and professional and a firm sort of kind; and c) treat the public the way they want to be treated. they don't owe it to anyone to stick to a certain image, or to pursue certain projects, or to cave to fan requests/demands just to keep others happy.

i would think you'd need to have a serious conversation with yourself in the mirror: why did you actually support this person? did you support them for them, as a real person who could change and grow, or were you supporting a constant idea of them that you liked?

are they "selfish and ungrateful" because they're choosing themselves, or because they're not choosing you/the fans?

i leave you with these questions because i think these answers are something only you can come to for yourself! i hope that this post has helped give you some of the perspective you were hoping for on the way there ♡

[nepheia]

here from your izumo/amphoreus parallels post after finishing the 3.7 story to ask: how does it feel to be a prophet. origin is pretty much exactly what cyrene ends up using to bring amphoreus into reality and i feel it ties back to elysia being the one to hold the title of herscherr of origin before passing it to mei

hello! i had to take a few days to reply to this because i wanted to finish the 3.7 story before i did and ooooooooooooooo boy. IT FELT INSANE TO SEE IT HAPPEN TBH especially playing through the epilogue and realising she uses all the shards of memory (fuli reference) transferred over to her from the actual cyrene to go back and create amphoreus' origins... which is so similar to the shards of the 12 sentinels being used to forge origin!!!

(i also just realised this week that cyrene's in-game buff for trailblazer is ode to genesis. i'm going to go lie down)

admittedly i am not super familiar with hi3 lore — what i know of it, i know from my friends — but that definitely sounds like it could be the case! especially considering all the parallels between the hsr and hi3 flame-chasers

[nepheia]

hey thank you so much for your response i was actually correct to think you are extremely kind idk why but i genuinely teared up several times reading your response it's fine you can keep the public post someday it might help some other poor soul thank you for responding and i really appreciate it i will try my best to come clean as soon as i can

oh what thank you for your kind words, anon ;o; my inbox is always open if you need a listening ear! i hope new fandoms will bring you just as much joy, and that, in its own way, yz can be a fond memory that you look back on sometimes or from afar ♡

[nepheia]

idek why i am sending this ask but you feel very kind to me i follow you on twitter but we are not mutual. maybe i am sending this because it feels easier to talk to someone who doesn't know me.

i have been in the yizhan fandom for a long time now i tried assimilating myself in their individual fandoms but it was extremely hard to find likeminded people who didn't hate the other one eventually i found some people were happy momentarily until some got busy, some switched fandom or the worst some got succumbed to the toxic echo chamber and started hating one of them.

i felt desperate so finally gave shipping a shot barely lasted a few months because too much infighting but nonetheless i found my small corner and stayed there.

eventually i slightly bent towards one of them more so it was easier for me open another account focusing on my every interest but mostly him and i once again found some rational people to hangout in my online escape zone with.

i posted the most delulu thing on one account on the other i stayed the most neutral person eventually that account became my main and i started showing my personality more got into hundreds of different things but still yizhan felt like my home as much as two celebrities idk can be.

though i never felt like i fit anywhere i learned to live found someone who is almost as sane minded as me but in recent months i feel like one of them is slipping away from me. it's not intentional but i just don't know how to hold on.

i still like both of them but i like one a lot more now i feel like i am betraying something. shipping them has been my escape for years now but now i feel indifferent to the ship idk how to tell that to the people who share their delulu thoughts with me.

one of them has no one but me to talk to about it but i see flaws or have some other explanation immediately after everything they wanna talk about i feel like an asshole when i pretend like i care like before but also feel like a jerk when i give the immediate thought because that makes the other person feel bad.

idk why i am saying all this to you but idk who else to talk about this with so extremely sorry for this long message and if you read it thank you

hello anon! i'm so sorry this took a while to get to — between being sick on-and-off and working on a few writing pieces over the past few weeks, i didn't manage to sit down and write you the reply you deserve, and i didn't want to rush it either ;o;

before anything else, i want to say that your feelings are totally valid!

fandom spaces these days can be rough. there are always so many strange expectations put on fans to act or interact a certain way, and because so often fandom is a place where we come together to share our joy about something, it's so much easier for us to feel like we have to conform to keep that source of joy.

but i think something we have to gently ask ourselves once in a while is: if this starts to feel like a job, is it really a source of joy anymore?

i always try to think of fandom like a friendship: some friends will stay with you for life. other friends, however amazing they were, will only be right for you in certain phases of your life. they were who you needed then — but people change, YOU change, and so do friendships and what they can do for you. friends come and go, and so do fandoms.

it is okay to fall out of love with something you've spent so many years with.

it is okay to no longer feel the same way you did about something.

it is okay to tell your friends, if gently, that actually you're not really into this thing anymore. friends, if they are made to last, will understand, i promise you ♡

it's not being disloyal, as so many people will probably say. nothing will change the fact that yz brought you lovely memories from when you liked them as a ship. it's really just a sign that maybe you're moving on to a different phase in life where there are new joys waiting for you! please don't feel like you are betraying xz or yb or the ship because they no longer bring you the same joy they used to — they are, at the end of the day, celebrities we do not know. you should be focusing on yourself, and not betraying what your own signs are showing you by continuing to stick to something that is just stressing you out.

it will be a slow and difficult process, and it will be scary at first. when something has taken up so much space in your life, it's only natural for it to leave behind a huge void where it once was. but as you slowly fill your time with other things — other celebrities or hobbies or franchises or things you enjoy — that void will start to fill, this time in a new shape and in a way that works for you now rather than the you from a few years ago.

please remember to be kind and patient with yourself along the way! and know that even if we don't know each other, i am rooting for you c:

thank you for trusting me enough to tell me about your fandom struggles. i hope this little message has helped lift even a little of the burden you've been feeling ♡

(i initially intended to reply to this in private, but i realise i can't do that because of tumblr's anon rule. so if you want me to delete this answer as it's currently public, please send me another message and i will asap!)

[nepheia]

lessons from izumo gensei and takama divine realm: foreshadowing amphoreus, its heirs, and its ending(s) as early as version 2.1

✼ spoilers ahead for events up to hsr version 3.6, with some references to concepts/events of honkai impact 3rd!

after the release of the recent exotale trailer, i went back to rewatch old myriad celestias for fun… and realised that the description of acheron's myriad celestia, lifted wholly from the izumo gensei and takama divine realm planar set, has so many parallels to amphoreus that it almost sounds like it's narrating the whole story.

this planar set was released in version 2.1 (!!!), long before any of us even knew what amphoreus was about.

sure, there have been prior comparisons made between phainon and acheron. well, they're kevin and mei. they are the sole survivor of their kind (at one point, at least, in phainon's case), and as emanators of their respective paths, seem to embody conflicting identities within themselves — acheron, who once wielded a blade named origin, now wields naught and brings an end to all with one slash; phainon, who is associated with destruction, ends every cycle with the express purpose of creating new beginnings and usher in new tomorrows. (but more on this later!)

the full story written in the planar sets, however, imply that the parallels run much deeper than the both of them and may point to the actual fate of amphoreus.

and with the last chapter of amphoreus dropping just a few days, what better time than the present to dissect this? (❀ ⸝⸝ᵕᴗᵕ⸝⸝)

before anything else… who or what is izumo?

izumo during its glory days, with a large statue under a great sun (kephale, is that you…?)

very briefly, izumo and its sister planet, takamagahara, are positioned as ground and sky. izumo is the land of humans, while takamagahara is the land of kami (神, god). to fight the kami who descended onto their planet, the people of izumo forged swords that gave them mastery over takamagahara's divine power. there were 12 such swords, known as edict edges, or sentinels.

sound familiar?

the sentinels vs. the heirs

izumo's blades of origin and end, the rope in this planar relic set, recites a song about izumo's uprising against the gods.

the magatsuhi no kami manifested and slaughtered without mercy, yet little did they expect their peerless authority to be stolen and taken. izumo broke seventy-thousand-and-thirty-three warrior's blades, forging the majestic sentinels twelve in number.

surprise, surprise: as we all know, the flame-chase journey is essentially mortals daring to challenge and take over the authority of the titans, functionally the divine in amphoreus. and although not all the titans were malevolent or malicious towards humankind, most of them were resistant to having their coreflames taken, or otherwise set up trials and challenges to obstruct the quest.

as of this patch, we have now also officially met all 12 chrysos heirs, who can be matched one-for-one to the 12 sentinels:

truth → cerydra

the first was "truth," forged with the slain sovereign of revelation. it allowed mortals to comprehend all laws and order, to dissect all things and to recreate miracles.

not only did cerydra inherit the law titan's coreflame and rule amphoreus for a time as its imperator, she deduced the truth of lygus' involvement, and used law's authority to effectively lock him out of his own administrative permissions. (which is, if you look at it a certain way, a miracle in and of itself, considering how she is only a line of code in a programme that he created.)

sky → hyacine

the second was "sky," forged with the slain eternal zenith. it could turn the sky into walls and fortresses and pose obstacles for the magatsu no morokami's steps.

hyacine inherited the coreflame of sky, and merged with aquila so that she could use the sky to protect the people of amphoreus and hold the black tide at bay. also worth mentioning that the 'zenith' is the highest point in the sky directly above an observer, and aquila was visualised in the story as a giant eye in the sky.

howl → mydei

the third was "howl," forged with the slain almighty thunder. it could summon lightning to tear the sky, and the soaring meteors and thunder to serve divine justice.

the wording here is very reminiscent of the noble glory that kremnoans associate with war and battle, and mydei's last stand at castrum kremnos delivering justice on behalf of his people. my memory is slightly foggy on this and i can't find the screenshot i thought i had, but i believe there is also text mentioning that mydei uses lightning and storms as a beacon/signal from castrum kremnos to okhema.

mist → cipher

the fourth was "mist," forged with the slain everbreath. it could make winds break and shear the land, for gales to rage forever unceasing.

cipher's unyielding will and her tenacity to keep her lie going ended up granting okhema dawn for a thousand more years — which many believed to be eternal. there is also a subtler association of 'mist' with how cipher, fleet-footed thief, is difficult to capture and operates largely unnoticed.

frost → evernight

the fifth was "frost," forged with the slain heaven's winter cloak. it could freeze and still the very order of time, to create boundless frozen wastes and stretch one moment into eternity.

ice remembrance, anyone? evernight was time titan oronyx's "mother" and wanted to turn everything into oblivion in her interpretation of fulfilling march 7th's wish. she also came into being from a shard of fuli, and we've already seen that amphoreus' remembrance ending means freezing everything in time so that there can be no more memories, forever and ever.

fate → castorice

the sixth was "fate," forged with the slain spurned sister of mortality. it could make flowers bloom and cover barren graves, for life and death to dance in a cycle and dissipate.

there's even a "sister" callback here! and of course, it also makes reference to many things about castorice's story: how polyxia and castorice were fated never to be together, castorice's ability to reverse the flow of life and death through her control over the river of souls (i.e. mydei, trailblazer), and her wish for the land of the dead to be a gentle place where flowers can ease the fear of loss and death.

flare → phainon

the seventh was "flare," forged with the slain flamebringer. it could summon fires to burn down the very world, to torch the skies and to char the earth.

in the deliverer trailer and phainon's (godtier) animated short, we see a lot of fire imagery, including the fact that he is literally reborn through fire and destroys everything in his path after. also, well, he is associated with the lord ravagers of destruction (sort of), who collectively answer their aeon's desire to "destroy everything".

thought → anaxa

the eighth was "thought," forged with the slain wisdom supreme. it could discern the past and future with the water mirror, to tell truth from lies over years beyond reckoning.

this is another self-explanatory one, with thought, wisdom, and reason all being in the same school of words. anaxa was also the first in new okhema to correctly deduce the truth of amphoreus as an experiment, and that the flame-chase journey and its promise of a better age of era nova was a lie.

(if you want to be pedantic about linguistics: cerces' loading screen text says that the reason titan allows humans to "reflect deeply to gain knowledge". reflections are, of course, associated with mirrors and water.)

root → dan heng

the ninth was "root," forged with the slain father of lands. it could command islands to float into the heavens, for mountains and valleys to burst before armies.

plenty of earth-related imagery to work off of here, with similarities to dan heng's quote about crossing mountains, how he burst forth from the great tree when he became the earth titan, and how wooden dragons now take root in and hold up the sacred tree at the grove. terravox also fits the description of "slain father of lands", as they faded/died after relinquishing the coreflame of earth to dan heng.

form → aglaea

the tenth was "form," forged with the slain nether lord. it could make the masses join in unity, for endless forms to ebb and flow as one.

aglaea was the one to scout and truly unite the chrysos heirs and new okhema under a singular banner, advancing them towards the same goal. you can also interpret 'form' as a parallel to her status as lady goldweaver — she gives form to clothing just as she does her multitude of creations that work in tandem with her (e.g. garmentmakers, her golden strings).

alternative reading: form could also be tribbie, whose thousand fragments work together as one in their singular hive mind, each able to pick up the others' work as they faded, one by one, from the world.

bind → hysilens

the eleventh was "bind," forged with the slain omen ward. it drove misfortune into a binding cage, for evil and demons to instantly vanish.

hysilens imprisoned lygus in her thousand-year watch under the ocean, and remained there to serve as the seal of sorts to the ward she had created. (sirens have also traditionally been considered an omen of death and temptation. it's a nice contrast against the fact that hysilens — despite having inherited the coreflame of phagousa, a titan associated with abandoning restraint for worldly temptations — remained steadfast to her duty till the very end.)

maw → tribbie

the twelfth was "maw," forged with the slain woes eighty. it could corrode and age the very mortal world and make equal kami and oni, leaving an entity's four souls to be sundered in twain.

in her capacity as holy maiden, tribbie parsed and translated divine prophecies for the people of okhema, essentially giving humans and gods "equal" sight into the future. her body's aging process is in some ways corroded, where she becomes smaller and younger as time passes instead of aging normally, and she has, of course, been sundered into several different fragments. (though tribios is said to have been split into a thousand fragments, only four are currently named in the game: tribbie, trianne, trinnon, and trissha, the person whose letters to seliose we read in 3.3.)

alternative reading: if you bought into the alternative reading for form, then aglaea can be maw. having ascended from mortal to demigod, she now walks "equally" among the human and the divine. by the end of her lifetime, her thousand years as part of the flame-chase journey had corroded her soul to the point where she no longer knew how to feel or express emotion.

wow, that was a long comparison.

okay lastly: where does the planar set say this song about the 12 sentinels is scattered?

the dual planets were intertwined in each other's tragic destiny, and a dead song was scattered amongst the cave where light hid.

lygus spent an entire patch and a half telling us about the allegory of the cave 😭 after the events of 3.6, it's also interesting to note that in this final cycle, the trailblazer (with strong associations to the light of the stellaron) is considered to have been "hidden away" in the cave amphoreus by evernight.

more parallels: izumo's end vs. amphoreus' origin

the planar sphere has a brief description of izumo itself in its heydays:

izumo was once covered in indescribable wars of survival, as well as once being blessed with glorious days of bountiful luxury… now, the barren land is nowhere to be found, leaving behind only a graveyard of swords where the past lies buried.

it reads a lot like the glory days of amphoreus that was shown to us in early 3.X: the war games of life and death that kremnoans made their way of life, the war cerydra waged in her time, and the "bountiful luxury" associated with okhema, where dan heng made curious note of how the people seemed to be living well even with war on their doorstep.

in contrast, amphoreus' true form is lines and lines of code, its 33 million cycles of past data and memories preserved in what is called the great tomb.

interestingly, amphoreus' looping nature is also explicitly referred to in the sphere, which seems here to be talking about the principles of nihility itself (which makes sense, considering izumo's association with acheron, emanator of nihility):

because everything that had happened will one day regress to the end, and everything that had ended is guaranteed to happen again. the universe undergoes an eternal recurrence under their shadow, and izumo is nothing more than the footnote for an ellipsis.

but anyway, back to the song description in the rope.

izumo's end is described as such:

then the underworld was cleared out, the wars called to a halt, and the twelve blades broken and locked.

the purpose of the flame-chase journey and era nova, or at least the promise of it, was to permanently eliminate the black tide and bring an end to all war and strife. when coreflames are returned to the vortex of genesis, the titan's symbol lights up, and they are considered 'locked in' to both the heirs and the players.

in the emptiness the dead souls grew restless, and under the black sun two blades were forged as bearers of the world's destiny.

this is supposed to detail the moment that the broken 12 sentinels were used to forge two more blades, origin and end. these, too, were broken, and used to create acheron's current sword, naught — the first step to the end of izumo as a planet. (we will come back to this!)

but it's also reminiscent of the start of amphoreus' recurring loop as we know it: when kephale's sun fell and darkness began engulfing amphoreus in that first cycle, cyrene and phainon shouldered the fate of the world together and set the eternal recurrences in motion, which led to the events of the twin blades that the flame reaver/khaslana wields throughout the main story.

speaking of khaslana...

the only other character in acheron's myriad celestia, who we don't see but hear directly speaking to acheron, presumably just before the end of izumo, is shiraga oni:

for reference: phainon, kevin (hi3), and shiraga oni all share the same cn and jp voice actors! so do acheron, raiden mei (hi3), and raiden ei/makoto (genshin).

so what? who is this guy?

白髪鬼, the characters of shiraga oni's name, can also be read as hakuhatsu ki — i.e. acheron's opponent who wielded the blade end. in her conversation with welt on penacony, she alludes to being aware that he is a variant of kevin from welt's original world in hi3:

towards the end of acheron's myriad celestia, shiraga oni says:

but you and i both know… the road to salvation does not exist. there is no trace of tomorrow. in resisting the kamigami (gods), humanity will eventually become oni (demonkind/end).

and doesn't that read a whole lot like khaslana? his growing hopelessness, his dimming view of his life's purpose, the loss of his ability to feel things after having to kill the people he loves in 33,550, 336 lifetimes. and how are humans different from demons, if not having the ability to feel emotions?

so what happened to izumo?

the sounds of lamentation ceased, and the dead flowers rose and fell. the losers returned to the void, and the winners… became null. witnessed by the great sun, the land once named izumo became completely devoid… of humans, oni, and kami.

putting together the storylines of both the planar and acheron's myriad celestia, izumo ultimately sank into nihility and became nothing.

if izumo is an amphoreus parallel, doesn't that mean possibility A really is amphoreus' true ending?

in the exotale trailer, silver wolf and kafka discuss two possible endings for amphoreus: possibility B, the bad end, where cyrene and trailblazer keep amphoreus in eternal stasis;

or possibility A, the good end, where trailblazer must inevitably say goodbye to amphoreus and delete the entire experiment — the heirs, the planet, all 33,550,337 lifetimes of memories — to ensure irontomb has no data to actualise with.

you can't really make a 1:1 comparison, but this would align closely with izumo's ending as well, where humans (everyone else), oni (the black tide), and kami (the titans/heirs) are all removed from the land (the amphoreus experiment).

it is implied that possibility A is the safest end, reinforced by the very last scene:

after all:

losses are a constant on the flame-chase journey, among which even life itself holds little value.

but what if izumo is actually alluding to a third possibility?

we've already seen that izumo and amphoreus share a world of parallels.

we've also seen that the three swords forged from the remains of the 12 sentinels — origin, end, and naught — had a part to play in izumo's end. if we apply that same logic, these three concepts should also then have a part to play in amphoreus' end(ings).

possibility A (amphoreus is deleted) is naught. everything ceases to exist, and it'll be like amphoreus was never even there. it would live on only in whispers among the well-informed, existence uncertain, just like izumo's aftermath described in the planar sphere:

nowadays, the past of the border planet izumo can only be gleaned from the scattered whispers in the universe. academics hold various views regarding its disappearance, but none can solve the mystery. izumo's history should have been a long flowing river, but it was severed in one cut, and all its past and future voided on emptiness' other shore. did it never exist, and was it no more than a fabricated story?

possibility B (amphoreus is frozen) is end. the entire planet comes to a halt, no way forward and no way backward, and the flow of life, time, and memory as amphoreus knows it will stop forever.

but what about origin?

the sentinels, as 12, were unable to save izumo. the 12 chrysos heirs alone, too, would never have been able to release amphoreus from its doomed recurrences.

but now that trailblazer is in the picture, along with the astral express and the entire alliance it has managed to gather across the cosmos, i believe (and am hopeful) that this points to a possibility C, where amphoreus is given new life and new origins.

plus, and let's be honest: from a meta perspective, there's no way they would reveal all the possible endings in a trailer. that's just bad storytelling 101!!!!

after all, we mustn't forget the rest of the flame-chase quote, which also alludes to the start of something new, something with no precedent:

losses are a constant on the flame-chase journey, among which even life itself holds little value. therefore, we cast even ourselves into the flame, only to inscribe the opening stroke in the poem of creation. of course, this will be a romantic story like none that has come before.

MY FAMILY.... PLEASE BRING THEM BACK............ 😭😭😭

and lastly: okay, but why izumo ↔ amphoreus?

to be fair, i don't think that amphoreus is necessarily meant to parallel izumo in a way that makes sense to the lore in-game.

maybe it's because acheron is a mei variant, and because of the relationship that mei has with kevin in hi3.

maybe it's just the devs pulling a funny and seeing how early they can bury future-planet lore for people to dig up later, or their obsession with banking on hi3 nostalgia and using izumo (presumably acheron's birthplace) as the "vessel" for that related lore.

maybe it's simply the common literary device of creating mythic retellings of one grand story, which is why franchises and sister projects and spiritual successor stories exist.

tldr: i have no idea.

closing notes: i don't read story leaks (if there are even any, with how tightly the lid is being kept on 3.7), so there are just under three days left until i find out if i was cooking here or if i'm just comedically wrong. we'll see :')

if you're still here, thank you, as always, for reading ♡

[nepheia]

Hey, i love your thoughts. So i want to ask you, do you think they are heading towards different career paths. Especially yibo. He did say no filming now, and i know it is temporary but maybe yibo wouldn't be active. I don't know where i am going with this but i do think they both would love to be in the industry and not with the fan craziness. Like being a director or so. But xiao zhan is still filming, So idk Just wanted to hear your thoughts on this. Have a great day ❤️😊.

hello! that's so kind of you to say, thank you so much; i'm always glad they make for decent reading 🥺

i think that xz and yb — as all celebrities inevitably do at some point in their career, however fleeting the thought — sometimes long for a quieter life. they seem like the kind of people who love the art forms they get to work with, but not necessarily the burden of stardom that comes with it.

i joke about them saving all this money for an early retirement, and i'm sure one day they'll quit front-facing entertainment altogether.

but for right now: rather than saying they're heading towards a different career path i.e. the either-or of "giving up" the limelight to disappear from the public eye, i see it as them creating a future with many different career paths that they can choose from.

they both have singing, acting, fashion, photo/videography; on top of that, xz has theatre and design, and yb has his 1823 side quests that he's somehow managed to turn into careers (😭)!!!!

being a part of so many worlds means that they never have to choose the either-or if they don't want to. they can spend a year tirelessly filming back-to-back, really honing their craft and bringing a story they love to life. they can spend the next year living off the grid, re-appearing in the public eye only for endorsements. they can spend it recharging with one of these semi-public but more lowkey lines of work. and then they can spend the next year shuttling between stage and set, or focusing on an exhibition or a car race, or a theatre tour or a concert tour, or a design show or a dance show — or none of it again, if they so choose!

i think it's great that they're getting to branch out from entertainment to do Normal People Things or just other things in general, especially if it's what keeps them fulfilled. different experiences make them richer as people, and sometimes some time away from the job can help you come back with much deeper perspectives.

(plus, i think xz and yb are the type to enjoy being challenged from a skill and intellectual standpoint. they're lifelong learners; they want to be able to constantly push themselves to a) improve at what they don't do well; b) be better at the things they already do well; and c) master new things that catch their eye as they mature in life.)

tldr: i wouldn't worry; they're still young, they have the world in the palm of their hands, and it sounds like a good thing that they're getting to pursue what they want outside of their "main" work!

this got terribly long, i'm so sorry! 1am thoughts are clearly catching up to me. but i hope this was a worthwhile read, and that you're having a lovely day too — and happy thanksgiving, if you celebrate it ♡

[nepheia]

testing your tumblr inbox hehehehe 😋 i saw your job needs you to be up to date on pop culture? if you're comfortable sharing are you an entertainment writer?

hello anon! consider the inbox tested — this was received safe and sound 💌

oh no i'm not an entertainment reporter hahahaha that sounds exhausting and frankly i don't think i'm built for that kind of brazenness. without giving too much away, i work at a weird intersection of tech and PR/brand/editorial comms! part of my job involves coming up with storylines for pitches to journalists, so it always helps to be able to tie what i'm pitching to pop culture references or current conversations c:

[nepheia]

a birthday letter to xiao zhan: fall

xiao zhan,

it's october! for most parts of the world, that means it's the height of fall.

it's when people stow away in their drawers the bright and sticky memories of summer, unearthing their shawls and long coats in its place. it's melancholy season, paradox season; the days grow shorter, daylight stretching a little thinner, but we try to put more into them, so that we make good on our projects and promises as the year comes to a close.

speaking of projects: congratulations on finishing your latest filming work! i find it so fitting that you're turning the page from one character to the next just as the leaves are also turning colour. you seem to already be racing onto the next thing on your tightly packed calendar, but i hope, before you breeze onward like an autumn draft, that you still find time to exhale this season. to slow your steps, if only for a while, and to watch the wistful way leaves fall from the branches that have held them all year long.

i have a small confession to make: i'm saying all this from imagination. i don't know what fall is like as a season, because there are no seasons where i live. for us, 'fall' is to lose. to slip. to drop, to spiral, to crash to the ground. and i thought that was terrible — until you.

you made me see 'fall' in a new light, time and time again.

where i see you the most, on screen, on stage, you fall into your characters and your lines so wholly that they become a part of you. delivered with love and precision and a special kind of kinship, made possible only by the midnight oil you burn trying to get them right, by the little annotations you scribble into the margins of your well-worn scripts.

you demand excellence from yourself first and then the people around you second, so exemplary in your discipline and your talent and your drive that you push colleague and critic alike to fall in line.

through it all, you trust the process but leave nothing to chance, cherry-picking new pursuits the same way you plan around existing ones: down to the last minute detail. you map them all out with the practised grace of a designer on the canvas of your life, every piece falling into place exactly as you intended it to.

and because you know what you want (or don't), confidence manifests on you in the loveliest ways.

you are wilful, eloquent, sometimes even a little stubborn; fearless, but never careless; tireless, but never senseless; relentless in all that you pursue. you're unafraid of falling out of step with what the world thinks is "right" for you — onto a path you make for yourself.

see, i could go on, but i think i've made my case:

the meaning of 'fall' isn't all that bad anymore, is it? ♡

just as you've rewritten this in my life, i trust you'll be writing and rewriting so much more in yours. you'll rewrite what people think of late bloomers in your line of work. you'll rewrite what it means to excel in your craft. you'll rewrite who you are in your own eyes as you become better and better with each passing year.

(but remember to take a breather for yourself, too. the best stories are those that pause at the right moments.)

happy 34th, xiao zhan. thank you for making fall special.

✼ originally posted on twitter ‧₊˚ ⋅

since xz has written so many lovely letters over the course of his career, i tried my hand at writing a birthday letter for him this year :') it was difficult trying to put into words how this one person has somehow upended my entire life, but who better to try for than him, right? ♡

[nepheia]

yours to keep, for all my lives: prologue & chapter one

read on ao3: yours to keep, for all my lives ‧₊˚ ⋅

maybe this is a collection of standalone short stories. maybe it is a window to the same characters in different universes. maybe it is a retelling of past lives. and if you let your imagination wander a little — maybe it could be all three.

✧ yizhan ✧ gen; tags and rating to be updated as we go ✧ an ongoing collection of short writing experiments + extended or edited versions of twtfic

i kept thinking i need a place to archive short writing experiments or the little au twtfics i have over at @cityscape, and was inspired by the premise of celine song's masterpiece past lives: wouldn't it be magical if each of these universes were a life they've lived? ♡

[nepheia]

Thank you for not being a dramatic cpf. I'm a new follower and I love how chill you are :)

omg hello and happy new year, anon!! that's absolutely nothing to thank me for but i'm glad you feel that way 🥹 rl is already hard enough for so many of us that i don't see any reason to always be fanning the flames about something in fandom spaces too. i hope my nonsensical word hours continue to be something you enjoy reading for fun ♡

[nepheia]

but where exactly is here?: unpacking the typography of 《我在》

yibo's annual music drops in a few hours! this will be my first time watching this lovely tradition unfold in real time, which is a strange but also very exciting feeling.

i've loved his teasers so far. they're slick, gorgeous, mature, evocative; transporting us right into the great outdoors that yb has spent so much time in this year — an ode to the nature-related passion projects he's chosen to share with the world, like the wildaid pangolin documentary and exploring the unknown 💚

and maybe it's yet another occupational hazard from working in editorial, but something that struck me almost immediately was the sleek and simple typography. it's really nothing much! but there's a lot you can do with a single font in a single colour, because opacity, thickness, and positioning do a lot of the heavy lifting.

and not to read too deeply into typography of all things at 2am but...

the low-opacity 我在 peering out from behind the opaque I AM NOT HERE makes me think of a smokescreen. that The Real Message is that yb is here, despite all the signs insisting that he's not.

but where, exactly, is here? what could this reflect?

consider: it reflects how he is with everything he loves. that sounds weird, but hear me out:

i can see it reflecting his appreciation of mastery and his style of learning. whether it's acting, sport, or whatever new whimsy that has caught his eye (and there have been so many!), he learns like a silent, watchful presence. almost like, coincidentally, a panther in the shadows. there is never any fanfare to it; he simply masters something by studying his colleagues and seniors — see: wuming filming.

i can see it reflecting how he enjoys falling off the radar, slinking away from cameras and sets and the bright allure of his celebrity to go places and do things that fulfill him. in not being present in public, he is more present with himself.

i can see it reflecting some decisions he's inevitably had to make not only as a star, but — let's be real — as a commodity and a businessman in his own right. decisions that may have seemed unlike him, but in truth were full of him, taking one step back for two steps forward, carefully laying the groundwork for a career where he will have the freedom to pick and choose. a career filled with opportunities that he will love, and that he can take up on his own terms.

i can see it reflecting the characters he's lovingly brought to life on screen — some of whom live such different lives, there are no traces of the high-flying wyb in the way they speak or laugh or cry. yet they share so much of who he is at heart, present if you look closely:

ruolai was a diamond in the rough, bright and talented, who ultimately stuck by his difficult decision to leave behind what gave him his big break. for ruolai, it was xiansheng and the bank; for yb, it was idol life in korea.

mr. ye, so much more than his outwardly stoic and calculating appearance, was so incredibly adept at his job that no one — not even the people he was working against — doubted his work. who could doubt the star power yb brings to any table?

and though a shanghai financier and fighter test pilot and aspiring dancer and second son of a noble clan are worlds apart, they all put everything on the line for a world they believed in, for a life that they were making: ruolai. mr. ye. chen shuo. chen yu. lei yu. lan zhan.

ah yes... lan zhan. the character who loved most like him.

i can see it reflecting how yb is when he's around the person he loves, so reminiscent of lan zhan: single-minded in his pursuit, deeply devoted, every minute movement bearing the hot brand of affection and admiration. looking at This Person like he hung the stars in the sky. orbiting a hundred times around him, and still happy to take another lap.

and of course, just like the title and the typography alludes, i can also see it reflecting how he is when he's not around This Person, because his love is like the moon. bright on some days, concealed on others, but always there, coiled around every whispered 晚安 'goodnight'.

as if to say, it doesn't matter if i'm not here. i'm here. 我在.

✼ originally posted on twitter ‧₊˚ ⋅

is it insane to be thinking this hard when i could be proven totally wrong once the songs come out? yes. could the typography actually just mean nothing? yes. will the sign stop me? it never has!! going insane about Those Parallels btw

[nepheia]

08 ⋆ on goodnight, all the same, and the ordinariness of love

✼ final part of the self is not me, but us series ‧₊˚ ⋅

to continue right where we left off:

“ how many people must turn how many corners to find their other half ”

how many, indeed? how many people can say they found their other half despite being from two different worlds, six years removed, and a billion possible branches of reality in between them? 

there were countless ways things could've gone wrong midway: if yb had to give up dancing. if yb had never left korea. if yb had never even gone to korea in the first place. if xz had never decided to leave design. if xz had never pursued music. if xz had been eliminated on xfire. if they had turned down cql. if if IF.

but this is the timeline where everything went right. the timeline where they fought to make it right, and somehow found their way to each other.

ughgfjghfh sometimes it feels like i'm witnessing the greatest love story of my time!!!

but despite the extraordinary circumstances they seem to share between them, the whole "the universe aligned for us" vibes of it all, their relationship is probably harder work than most.

they often spend weeks apart at a time, if not months. even if they really need the physical connection, they have a contractual obligation to their work and the people they employ to not act on every whim. they probably see each other through screens more often than they do in person — or sometimes, when they're really busy, not at all. 

their love is like water, steady and ever-present and reassuring, trickling quietly even if you don't see it; and i think this is beautifully reflected in goodnight. 

because for a song that is so clearly about love, nowhere — not even once — is there any mention of the word 'love'. instead, it's quite unseen, tucked away gently between the lines, around the corners of words and actions that ring with the familiar pang of affection:

“ using a bowl of noodles, a bowl of soup to flush away this piece of sorrow ”

“ using a short phrase, a bowl of food to take away the entire night's loneliness ”

in tears over the fact that food is a central theme to this song!!!!

for a lot of people but especially in asian families, food is the ultimate love language. y'know the joke about how a plate of sliced fruit is as close an apology as you'll get with asian parents? yeah. it's the mothers seeing their kids off to university with container upon container of pre-cooked, homemade meals. it's the spreads of food they make at home (a meal is usually rice + soup + dishes), the food all made to share with the ones you love rather than individually portioned, because meals are when everyone makes the time to be together.

it's how "have you eaten?" is a replacement for "how are you?" in so many asian cultures, because to eat is to be healthy and fulfilled.

xz has always seemed to me a keeper of tradition where he can. as someone who loves to cook + all the times yb took it upon himself to make sure xz was eating right + if you're a 🔴🟢 loyalist like me, the numerous food-related anecdotes they've shared, i can't help but think xz associates meal times with connection and with yb 🥹

and just for now, that's enough to tide him through the meals and days apart. that's enough to tide him through the wait, until the next time they can be together again, 

because i think waiting is very romantic,

“ don't be too pessimistic; need to get used to it sooner or later  the one left behind has no choice but to bear it ”

because to love you is to love loneliness,

“ the starlight i once looked up to see every star shining faintly perhaps loneliness is commonplace ”

“ every faraway place is right next to you ”

"and in my dreams hidden deep in my heart is the sweet fantasy of you and me / but then i realised loving you is loving loneliness"

"i think loneliness will accompany me for a lifetime."

because you and i will be together for the rest of our lives, with just these feelings,

“ don't retreat seeing your single-mindedness is able to disperse my anxieties ”

"it's okay, wang yibo. the road ahead is long."

because, at the end of the day, love is very rarely about the grand gestures. it's very rarely the diamond-studded necklaces, or the custom logo designing, or the changing flights to see which one will bring me to you faster. love is the "have you eaten?", the "be safe", the "let's do this together next time", the "this reminded me of you", the "don't stay up late", the "i'm on my way", the "i'll do this for you", the "i wanted to show you this", the "i'll wait for you".

love is making do with text messages or video calls or simply thoughts of the other person, a blanket of warmth as you lay down to rest, lingering over the last word because you're hesitant to part even through a screen, but oh—

“ time to stop speaking, the sun's about to rise thank you for the 'goodnight' you gifted me ”

♥️

closing notes: thank you for reading all the way till the end of this absolutely unhinged collection of thoughts! i would love to hear what you think, or which part(s) spoke to you the most.

this was my first time writing up anything like this, and i had the best time chronically overthinking reading between the lines and stringing everything together into a narrative flow that (hopefully!) makes sense. unfortunately, like xz, i too am a victim of occupational hazards. shoutout to my film professor who made absolutely sure that i would never again be able to consume a piece of media like a normal person rip

i am usually at cityscape on twitter if you would like shorter, but no less deranged, word hours! ♡

← back to masterpost

[nepheia]

07 ⋆ the hidden yizhan song no one is talking about: return to zero

✼ part 7 of the self is not me, but us series ‧₊˚ ⋅

yes, we're all victims of the goodnight syndrome — myself included, because it's been like three weeks or something and i still have it on loop. i'll get to that in the next part, where you'll realise i am! absolutely! not normal! about that song!

BUT. also dropping on that same day was return to zero, which i haven't really seen too many people talk about. to me, it's as heavily yizhan-coded as goodnight, if a little subtler, and not just because of the mountains on the lyrics poster (which thankfully aren't snow-capped, else i would've been Even More Insane):

if goodnight is yz in the present, in their disgustingly sweet power husbands married couple era, then return to zero is yz in the past, circa 2018.

“ the silence of sighs and someone's secret time flows backwards the blurs of light and shadow confusion and clarity ”

this verse and the nature-related imagery of the lyrics took me back to the tail end of that whirlwind summer, where — if you'll let me project a little — both xz and yb were likely having to confront the intimacy they've shared over the course of filming cql.

after months of "time-travelling" every day (jumping between past to present-day wangxian, from period to modern-day yizhan), xz had to leave their little bubble of security. the cast and crew who've taken in stride their egregiously open secret, their egregiously open displays of affection. the convenient excuse of playing soulmates in a passion project they don't even know will air. 

he had to go back to a time where they didn't get to spend hours and hours together every day. to a time where he would have both clarity ("if i spend time apart from him, maybe i'll be able to figure out what this is") and confusion ("but now that i've experienced it, can i unlearn what it's like to spend every waking moment with him?").

he had to take that japan trip to walk away from wei ying and, as some say, to figure out who exactly he felt those emotions for.

“ the letter that was never sent and the you who is unknown ”

re: "never sent" — for those of you familiar with the japan trip cpn, there's the wechat block theory… i've always been ambivalent about that so i won't include that here. but that's an alternate and very applicable line of thought!!

there really was no need for letters, was there? because that "i miss you" may have been woven onto a cap, but it might as well have been a loudspeaker, with how persistently and publicly its owner wore it. and well, xz did figure it out sometime during that trip. after all, when he came home, the modern man wasn't unknown anymore; he was going to be named c:

“ it turns out reality and the dream world zero out together ”

where did you find love, xz was asked once. in a dream, he said.

and what could be more dreamlike than finding your soulmate while filming a story about, well, soulmates?

you could read these two lines as xz resurfacing from that trip with a more nuanced answer to "is what i feel because of the role or because of the person?". fiction and reality have cancelled each other out, because he is allowed to have both. (to keep with the theme of multiple selves: he is both.) his feelings for yb are as real as they come, and they can co-exist with the realisation that as the person who brought wei ying to life on screen, a part of him will always love lan zhan. that's the kind of story you will never, ever be able to tell again. 

but i also like to think of these lines as his thought process during that trip.

it always made sense to me that xz maybe needed some time to think about it all, and to figure out how to reconcile what they have (dream) with what they're allowed to have (reality). they were both rising stars with a lot to lose, but they're also just people, who i believe were — are — acutely aware that this isn't something you find every day, sometimes never even in a lifetime.

so he decides they'll make it work.

and you know when the books describe the oh moment? when the world seems to pause on its axis, when everything is suddenly clear and bright and beautiful?

“ the wind is flying past the fog is dusted over the sky suddenly held its breath ”

“ a loud explosion from the moment i saw you ”

yeah stand up mister xiao "team love-over-time but suddenly couldn't say that when roseonly asked if he believed in love at first sight" zhan

and now just for fun, because i'm already insane and might as well go all in:

🎪 bonus round — a series of cute etymological coincidences!

remember i said thankfully no snowy mountains in the poster visual? 

零 (zero), like many a chinese character, is made up of different component characters or radicals: 雨 (rain) + 令 (lots of different meanings depending on context, sorry!!). coincidentally, this is the same 令 as in 陈情令 / cql, and we also know xz and yb are both self-proclaimed rainy day enjoyers.

coincidentally also, 零 (zero) and 雪 (snow) both share the same 雨 radical.

i yoyo quite intensely between the idea that obviously no one has the goddamn time to think about all this (except me, apparently) and that this is also xz's specific brand of nerdy linguistics (• ◡•)

← prev ┊ part 6: the elephant in the room: reading this album as a cpf → next ┊ part 8: on goodnight, all the same, and the ordinariness of love

[nepheia]

06 ⋆ the elephant in the room: reading this album as a cpf

✼ part 6 of the self is not me, but us series ‧₊˚ ⋅

WHEW WE MADE IT TO THE 2ND HALF

a short section this time, but there's always this conversation to be had, huh?

i think a lot of people misunderstand when cpfs say we see yb or yz in some of these songs. most of the time, we get accused of not being able to see xz as an individual, or that we don't respect him for who he is because we make it sound like he's doing this for yb.

let's get one thing straight.

xz is scarily, incredibly, extraordinarily talented as an artist and a person. i think we all see that us was an exercise of stretching the self through musical storytelling, of taking the time to really create something special that represents him, and it has been received as such within the industry as well.

this album is neither for fans nor for yb. this album is a labour of love by xz, for xz, and about xz. they're about his stories, his experiences, his emotions.

but when your life is so intertwined with someone else's, when you've spent so many years orbiting around each other, is it so strange for them to become a part of you? is it so strange for you to start associating some sights and senses with them? is it so strange to want to weave them into a project as personal as this, because to you, a journey with them is your journey too?

are these emotions not also his?

“ every faraway place is right next to you ”

“ even if there are thorns underfoot i'll gladly accompany you to the end ”

“ thank you for the 'goodnight' you gifted me ”

anyway

YOUR HONOUR, THIS IS A MAN IN LOVE. TURTLES RISE UP LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS (and honestly, the main reason i wanted to do an analysis in the first place before it all got away from me)

← prev ┊ part 5: whenceforth do the night walkers go? screens as a means of travel → next ┊ part 7: the hidden yizhan song no one is talking about: return to zero

[nepheia]

05 ⋆ bonus: whenceforth do the night walkers go? screens as a means of travel

✼ part 5 of the self is not me, but us series ‧₊˚ ⋅

confessions of a night walker really stood out to me on first listen because a) it's xz's gorgeous, tinkling voice; b) i love night walks!; c) i could look at it through an academic lens.

so, as a nerdy little bonus before we move on...

the song reads at first like a wistful critique of modern society: we've become creatures of connection, largely through the feedback loops (SEE, IT'S HERE TOO) on our screens. there is an almost perverse beauty to the fact that the internet never sleeps, that you only need to reach out and there will be a community somewhere to be a part of. but at what cost — and is this a husk of what human connection should be?

“ drawing oxygen from the wireless network ”

“ those who walk at night never turn off their lights allowing the night to be completely resplendent ”

“ a sacrifice for loneliness a complement for darkness looking for someone who is the same ”

as if on cue, my media theory major reared her ugly head and asked: if 夜行人 literally means someone who goes around at night — fellow travellers at night — then isn't there a fun contrast between physical travel and the imagined travel through a screen?

margaret morse talks about this in one of my favourite media theories ever: the ontologies of everyday distraction.

the theory mostly explores the concept of imagined mobility (the feeling of travelling even if you're not) and re-imagining mobility (challenging the notion that travelling must be a physical movement of the body). she says these three things are all mediums of travel: the freeway (i.e. the roads), the mall, and the television.

everyone knows freeways take you to places physically, a stretch of road longer than most others to evoke satisfaction for having travelled a long way.

but the mall — or in this case, "online shopping with more abandon" — brings places to you. the infinite products available for sale makes your little shopping app this utopia of consumption, a litany of the world's offerings in your palm. you no longer have to be in the same place as the thing you want to buy: you can buy japanese matcha from your local department store in sydney, or from your too-small apartment in new york.

this shopping experience is similar to the 'travel' you get from screens — the television, the phone, the computer. 

even after you retreat back into the private space of your home, your screens give you the ability to 'interact' with things outside the home: commodities, people, stories that belong to others (film, news, etc). this has been the case for all screens — even dating back to the radio/newspapers, really — where they have always been a way of escapism. filling the human void for new sensations, a curious hunger for things you would otherwise never be able to see.

“ treat the unfamiliar with sincerity treat the familiar with cruelty ”

we do this because we're all constantly looking for something new to ✨ Spark Joy ✨. we tire of the same things too quickly, our attention spans shorter and shorter, flicking through reels and pictures and channels on the hunt for something to satiate our desire for the new.

“ the further the distance the more complete a person ”

the mall and the television (and our screens now) all acquaint people with this imagined mobility: going places in our minds even though we aren't going anywhere physically. it taps into the same part of our brain that finds satisfaction — or at least fascination — in learning about world news, because it makes us seem well-read or well-travelled.

OKAY ENOUGH CHELS what does this have to do with xz or this album?!?!?!?!

the overall theme of the album, and a focal point of drifting especially, is that we exist at the intersection between two realms. whether that's dreams vs. reality, the singular self vs. the plural self, or inner sphere vs. outer world, every single song has touched on this in some way or the other.

and i found it an interesting parallel with morse's conclusion in the book: that "everyday distraction" doesn't mean that a singular realm is being interrupted. just because your screens give you access to the public sphere while you're at home doesn't make your home any less private. it just means that we're capable of inhabiting multiple realms at once.

xz's multiplicity of the self, right?

consider also: the fact that xz's profession revolves around being seen on screen(s). every time he steps onto a stage or into a role, he exists at the intersection of two spaces: the world of the character he's trying to play, and how little or how much of himself he should be bringing to the portrayal.

consider also 2.0: he's said before that being an actor enables him to live entirely different lives and experience things he would otherwise never be able to experience as xiao zhan. oh hey, isn't that imagined mobility? :)

sorry im a big nerd i will shut up now

for readers who aren't interested in the cp portion of this analysis, this is a great place to turn back! thank you for reading this far, and i hope you enjoyed the stay ♡

←  prev ┊ part 4: why i say this album is xiao zhan in a bottle →  next ┊ part 6: the elephant in the room: reading this album as a cpf