#grae rumbles

[absolmon]

I’ve been seeing people claim that Shen Jiu needed a lawyer at his trial but honestly SJ would be the worst client. He doesn’t ever explain himself, not even to Yue Qingyuan, and he refuses to make himself look better to appeal to others. He’s rude and snide, but clams up when confronted. Trying to get information out of him would be like pulling teeth, even if it was to save him. SJ has already decided the world thinks him guilty, he’s not going to debase himself by begging for an outcome that will never come. You ask him what happened with Liu Qingge and he’d be like ‘That stupid brute dug his own grave’ and refuse to elaborate. He’d make his lawyer cry is what I’m saying.

[absolmon]

Aequorin made a post in several of the threads worrying about the new Charity familiar for those that need to read it.

[absolmon]

For Valentine’s Day I’ve decided to do a little break down of my villainess wife OC for Jiang Cheng, Yao Jiao. The lovely art is done by @bunhells and @red-pearl-white-flower

Yao Jiao is the third child of Sect Leader Yao who is out to make her impact on the world by becoming the wife of a powerful Sect Leader. After considering her options, Yao Jiao has set her sights on Jiang Cheng as her ideal choice. With no nagging in-laws to worry about or any real competition for his hand, Yao Jiao sets out to prove she can be the ideal partner and Mistress of Lotus Pier for Jiang Cheng. With an offer to take down one of Jin Ling’s biggest rival cousins, she will make sure Jiang Cheng knows she’s serious about her offer.

I’ve based her on my love of Villainess Manhwa and general scheming women. Feel free to ask any questions.

[absolmon]

I've seen people complain that he treats others like objects early on but they were just flat background characters to him until he transmigrated. And I think part of why he tries to hold onto this fiction for so long is because he doesn't want to breakdown. You wouldn't consider someone evil for killing an NPC in a video game, right? So him killing the Skinner is just removing a tutorial boss in his mind, even though on a deeper level SY is horrified. If there's one thing we can all agree SY excels at it's compartmentalizing.

I feel like enough people don't acknowledge that a big part of the reason that Shen Yuan acts the way he does about the people around him is because the System is essentially gamifying his interactions with them. He literally gets points and objectives from interacting with others via a user interface. There's a shop to get cheats!

The System presents itself like a video game but it also obscures information from SY and railroads him when he tries to break free from its script. All of the dialogue options the System gives him are like Glass Him. As far as SY can tell he's been trapped in a flat world as the only real human being and the System puts in work to keep it that way. The only thing the System cares about is having an interesting story and it doesn't care about either the people of PIDW or its transmigrators.

[absolmon]

He came! @meltedmush was selling their Skinzun keychain stock and I managed to snag one for myself. Melted even included a cute little drawing with him! I’m so thrilled, I’m sorry for the shitty lighting but I had to show right away. Thanks again meltedmush!

[absolmon]

Got my latest piece from @yutaan ! I got one of my favorite characters, Yue Qingyuan! I love all the metallic details and her willingness to include my favorite flower, the Bleeding Heart. Yutaan even included a little doodle on the outside of the package! I’m so thrilled, especially with the expression. Thanks so much Yutaan!

[absolmon]

I’ve been seeing people complaining that Genshin is suddenly about “The Power of Friendship TM” and I have to wonder why they’re complaining about it now. Genshin has always been about love and friendship from the very start. The Traveller is empowered by friendship. Here, let me do a quick pithy breakdown of each AQ ending:

Mondstadt: Everyone comes together to break through to Dvalin so that Venti’s friendship can reach his heart to make him stop attacking the land.

Liyue: The humans and the Adepti forge a new bond after coming together to protect Liyue after the ‘death’ of Rex Lapis.

Inazuma: The Traveller funnels all of the lands desires for the Raiden Shogun to listen to them into an attack to shake her will and make her realize she needs to reconnect to the world after her friends and family died.

Sumeru: The nation comes together to devise the ultimate strategy to take down the Scara mech using the Akasha.

Fontaine: Uno reverse, Furina plays a 500 year long play to convince the Hydro Sovereign that the people of Fontaine are worth saving using friendship and connection.

Natlan: The entire nation uses their trust and belief to empower the Traveller and Mauvika to defeat the Abyss. Capitano then uses the fact that he has been storing the souls of his friends and comrades inside him to force Ronova to bend to his will.

Nod Krai: The people of Nod Krai come together to convince Columbina that she can have friends without obligations which gives her enough strength to save and protect the nation from Dottore.

All of the bad guy factions run on some degree of lack of friendship. Connections are what separate us from our sibling, Paimon as our first friend has helped guide us along with making new friends and connections along the way while our sibling threw theirs away for revenge. The Tsaritsa and Fatui have given up on love to focus on calculated warfare. The Abyss is consistently shown whispering about not trusting others and that no one cares. The Heavenly Principles intended to initially run the world with Envoys not allowed to make connections with the people they were protecting and the first Uprising was started by an Angel in love and Nibelung’s dear friend.

If you don’t like this Shonen style of writing, why didn’t take you till 6 years in to complain. There are issues in Genshin, I won’t deny that, but this specific complaint is stupid and not worth humoring anymore.

[absolmon]

I got another piece done of Chen Min done by the wonderful @cylunny ! They did a great job capturing her essence, and were a real pleasure to work with. They're currently open for commisions on VGen if you're interested. They're great at drawing monsters.