#hsr lore

[dwmwntia]

i don't remember the caption i made for this💔🥀

[anyacad0]

I think what keeps bringing me back to the high-cloud quintet is how they've all hurt each other so badly and yet none of them can truly be considered an antagonist. There's no world where any of them could realistically have chosen differently. Each one of them is both victim and perpetrator in one way or another and it makes for such a beautiful tragedy.

On the surface and I mean realllllly on the surface, Dan Feng is the antagonist. Because he's the one who made the choice that screwed up everything else. Except did he have a choice, really? He straight up said in 3.6 that knowing everything that came after, he still wouldn't choose differently. That's not him being dismissive, there was just no possibility of him letting Baiheng die while he might have had the ability to save her. He was so lonely before the quintet and no one ever taught him to let go because no one ever thought he might be human enough to struggle with it in the first place. It is literally his Aeon-designated nature to want the things he cares about, forever, and it's kind of impossible to treat Aeons as true antagonists because THEY, too, are slaves to THEIR nature. It would have been impossible on a philosophical level for Long to create something that knew how to cope with loss.

From a thematic standpoint, you could maybe argue that Jingliu is an antagonist. In a story about moving on, she's the one who clings to the past the hardest, who forces her ideals on the others. She wants to punish Dan Feng and Yingxing for refusing to let Baiheng die, but in doing so she's also refusing to let Baiheng die. And yet. When was she afforded any other opportunity? She was never in a position to empathise with them because between the Cangcheng disaster and dedicating her life to the sword, loss had become an inevitability to her. The Hunt was entirely her way of life; transgressions should be met with punishment, that was simply the way of the world for her. She had dedicated her life to vengeance long before the quintet was even formed. Coupled with the fact that she was already nearly mara-struck, she never truly had any other choice. In theory, maybe, she could have chosen forgiveness, but her past experiences had already removed that possibility.

I don't think anyone will argue for Blade being an antagonist but let's talk about him anyway: Yingxing was so desperate to prove his existence a meaningful one that I don't think he was ever particularly morally sound. And as a craftsman, he believed that everything could be fixed. He could never bear the idea of not taking action because he ended up being emotionally dependent on proving that being a short-life species, the thing that the Xianzhou treated him as lesser for, was actually what made him better than them. If he did nothing, treated immortality as a taboo without even trying to fix things, then he'd be just like a Xianzhou native. Are we noticing a pattern yet? The world had already shaped him into the person who'd try and help Dan Feng because he didn't feel like the Xianzhou was something worth obeying. And then, past the point of the Sedition, his actions are tainted by Jingliu's 'training' which she also had no choice in not only because she was mara-struck but because punishment and vengeance were all the world had taught her to depend on.

Jing Yuan is... interesting. He did have choices, and he made some pretty good ones. He was the only member of the quintet with healthy experiences to fall back on and it definitely shows. He did hurt the others in that he moved on, he dealt with Jingliu, he did his job as general. He says as much when he's borderline emotionally blackmailing Dan Heng to get him to help with the Arbor Crisis: he puts the Xianzhou before his feelings. Technically, yes, he had the choice, but he also had the wisdom to know that nothing good would come of intervening. It's not as if he did nothing- he fought to get Dan Heng released from the Shackling Prison, he let Blade go after the Arbor crisis- and some of it was due to his feelings, sure, but he's always acted in the interest of causing the minimum possible disturbance. The safest thing he could do was bear the burden on his own, bury his feelings, and try to get on with his life on his own, and that's not something he deserves to be faulted for.

And then finally we get to Dan Heng, who unsurprisingly inspired this post. How much easier could things have been for him if he had accepted from the start that he was Dan Feng, and that he'd hurt people but he'd done it because he was just so painfully human and he loved too much? If he'd recognised Blade from the start instead of constantly running from him? If he'd been able to share his past with the Express Crew from the beginning? We'll never know the answer because between the amnesia and the growing up in prison and the self-hatred inherited from Dan Feng, that was never a possibility.

There is just so much tragedy in how all of them are so helpless to their own natures and how technically everything was preventable and yet in reality all of it was completely inevitable. Nothing is fair and nothing can ever really be made right. They were all just people doing the best that they could with what they were given.

[nanakorobiyaokii]

he’s that type of those complicated characters with a soft/good nature but always perceived with a cold/crazy personality plus with a flavor of constantly rage baiting people in-game and irl. AND THEY EXACTLY KNOW WHAT THEY WANT AND HAVE PASSION TO PURSUE IT NOT CARING IF THEY FAIL OR SUCCEED (the tenacity and confidence is HOT) ugghh i’ve hit jackpot with you ANAXAGORAS THE CHARACTER YOU ARE

[ironunderstands]

This took me way too long soooo… for my Amphoreus Lore Lovers…

Crossposted off my TikTok! Read left to right!

Also feel free to repost this on other platforms (I don’t even care that much if you credit me or not) I didn’t spend 8+ hours making this for nobody to see it 😭

I fucking ran out of image space SO HOP TO MY REBLOG YEAHHH (there’s only three left so)

[orian847]

"We'll live forever, right?"

... hey @feralnt, I have something for you, fellow headcanon owner

[naasog]

✨Illustration for HSR Loufu Zine ✨

[kkanarura]

‘Why did Phainon burn Mydei’s library during the Eternal Reccurence?’

or i thought too hard about this now im crying. thanks hoyo. rays of sunshine like always.

We know Mydei ‘steers clear of such weak literature’ like poetry, but he indulges Phainon when he suddenly breaks out into verses. We also know Phainon adores books, knowledge and the arts.

He was the Grove’s debate champion for years and pampered by Aglaea. He wore disgusting outfits because he put deep thought into the type of emotions each colour evoked in him and wanted to create a living tapestry of his emotions through his clothes. He’s a confident hopeless romantic.

I’ve always been curious why Flame Reaver/Khaslana burned Mydei’s library. It’s unnecessary. It’s out of character. But most of all, it’s random.

Mydei asked Phainon, presumably in every timeline, to ‘visit his library in the next life’. Mydei’s library was a manifestation of his love: for his country and for phainon. Mydei’s love is indulgence. Quiet considerations. Gentle modifications that make Phainon think ‘oh Mydei booked the rooftop again, because he knows i like the view. Mydei gave me terrible food again, because he knows i’ll seek him out for an argument and we will end up spending the entire day together.’

Mydei’s love is modest, but bountiful. It’s easily missed because Kremnoans are so bold in everything else. But Phainon sees it. Phainon knows Mydei loves him.

And Phainon betrayed, hunted and killed Mydei 33,550,336 times. While he knew their quiet love was reciprocated.

The burning of the library was not a merciless act of madness. Khaslana clung desperately to his sanity for the whole of the Eternal Reccurence.

Rather: What if Khaslana had a moment of clarity?

The full truth of Mydei’s library, how it represented Mydei’s gift of literature to his sweet Phainon because he knew it would make his hopeless romantic happy even if they could never be together in that lifetime, hits Khaslana. It hits him hard.

In an act of self-destruction, Khaslana burns Mydei’s library. It’s an act of vulnerability. The Mydeimos of the cycle would’ve looked at Khaslana and seen Phainon. A Phainon that acknowledged Mydei’s love, and told Mydei he wasn’t no longer worthy of it. He is burning something that (objectively) doesn’t mean anything to Mydei, but is special to Phainon. The fire is a symbol which tells Mydei all that’s left for them in the next life is the flames of Phainon’s eternal self-destruction. He was a man that hurt everyone he loved, now.

When Lygus taunted Flame Reaver/Khaslana in 3.4 for burning the library, he was trying to make Khaslana internalise all the instances he lashed out becs of his love as cruel moments of violence. Lygus tried to make Khaslana hate himself so he was easier to manipulate.

But Phainon, always, was filled with love. So even though he hated himself in the end, his final act of self-sacrifice wasn’t for the destruction—but for the protection of the next world. A kinder cycle, where everyone could have their dreams fufilled.

A cycle haunted by the nameless hero that set the stage for The Nameless deliverer.

[lunecadet]

about nanook and the destruction

warning this is kind of a mess because this is just a copy pasted rant from discord but i felt like i should post this

so. dan feng's lines about the destruction in the new trailblaze quest got me thinking.

amphoreus in general has me thinking a lot about what we think destruction is vs what it actually is

because i feel like the writers have been putting a lot of emphasis on one thing with the garden of recollection: just because pathstriders devote themselves to an aeon, doesn't mean that an aeon agrees with what they're doing

they made it clear this last patch that fuli supports what's going in amphoreus

but we don't know that nanook does

and then i got thinking: when are the times that nanook actually shows up

before i get to that, i wanna talk about destruction characters

when you think about it, destruction characters don't make sense when you look at it from the stance of a lord ravager or the annihilation gang

trailblazer, mydei, firefly, saber, fucking clara, phainon is the emanator but then dan feng said that line and it all made sense

so back to moments when nanook actually shows up: he saves the trailblazer after they just gave up their memories to start their new path. he shows up to witness phainon sacrifice everything to give amphoreus one more chance

and when you think about it, this makes the characters make sense: destruction characters are sacrificing something or doing something to bring in new life or are striving for a new life or rebirth, firefly was looking for a brighter future and different life. dan heng joined the astral express after going through molting rebirth. mydei fought for a place in the world for kremnoans. trailblazer gave up all of their memories to set out on their trailblazing journey, of course that would draw nanook's attention. tldr; destruction isnt just about destruction, its about destruction and reinvention