#the cataclysm

[fassylovergallery]

🦈 THRASH [2026] I focused on framing nature, the cataclysm, interiors of houses, homes, and sharks. Basic rules of common decency apply. Do not claim this as your own work — please support me by reblogging this post! You’re free to use the gifs for edits and crackships, but make sure to tag me if you do. Click the source link.

[scagsaurus]

[thespianinthebackcorner]

imagine if Celestia gave an extra, personalised curse to the people they considered the perpetrators of the Cataclysm, like Khaenri'ah's sages. Imagine if Rhinedottir's was to feel the pain her children felt, especially as Celestia proceeded to send each and every one to their deaths. Imagine her feeling Durin's lingering regret and Subject Two's hatred and Elynas' mourning. Imagine if that's why she's gone MIA, because it's driving her insane. Imagine if that's why she's so isolated and emotionally unavailable to Albedo because if she was a normal parent she'd have to feel his pain more than she would now. Imagine if she can still feel it when Albedo misses her and even though he doesn't know it, both of them are crying.

Because she misses him too. But to get close would just mean more pain.

[0verseer-o9]

more ppl should talk abt this thing

[phyneire]

If that is generally the dendro archon I can see why the Tsaritsa cut ties with Celestia. A continent wide disaster that crippled nations and killed two adult archons along with thousands of mortals and Celestia then thinks its a good idea to give a preschooler divine power and authority. That is incredibly unethical and a completely legitimate reason to give up hope with Celestia.

Like on top of all her personal losses, the likelyhood of her having kept a mental record of everything Celestia has done wrong throughout her rule as the cryo archon and the potential theory that she was romantically involved with the previous dendro archon. Celestia pulls that. That's enough reason to snap.

[niteshade925]

v2.6 Chasm Lore Thoughts Pt.2:  500 Years Ago, the Cataclysm

(Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4)

Spoilers ahead!  You have been warned.

Chasm, 500 Years Ago

It’s pretty much confirmed that the bottom of the Chasm is where Rhinedottir/Gold’s Abyssal creations started invading Liyue from.

Ruin serpents, including Haftvad the Worm, may have been the machines that enabled this? (Ruin serpent archive description:  “If this was the case, then carving out tunnels with which the forces of this nation might access the whole continent would have been a thing of great ease”)  Bonus in that ruin serpents actually throw out oozing concretions.

The Yaksha who went into the Chasm to fight the invading Abyssal powers is definitely the electro Yaksha from the Xiao trailer.  The artifact set Vermillion Hereafter descriptions talk about a “four armed Yaksha”, and the Thundering Poise mask matches the purple mask from the Xiao trailer.

Also the beads on the artwork for the Vermillion Hereafter artifact pieces are reminiscent of Xiao’s necklace.

The electro Yaksha may have wielded Calamity Queller at the time, since the Calamity Queller’s description did mention it.  The English translation for the Thundering Poise mask description says “blade in hand”, which is pretty much the right translation for “扬刃” in the original text, however “blade” and “刃” have different connotations in their respective languages.  “Blade” can imply a sword, whereas “刃” doesn’t have as strong of a connotation.  So it’s pretty much confirmed that the electro Yaksha wielded the Calamity Queller.

The mystery here is what happened to the electro Yaksha?  Xiao’s trailer says that besides Xiao, “death came to three, while the fourth vanished without a trace”.  Was the electro Yaksha one of the three who died, or the fourth one who vanished without a trace?  So far there’s evidence for both.  The Vermillion Hereafter set suggests that the electro Yaksha died in battle, but the Yakshas:  The Guardian Adepti story trailer (aka the story from Zhongli’s perspective) suggests the electro Yaksha went crazy, similar to other beings who came into close contact with the Abyss, for example, the Oni Mikoshi Chiyo.

About the English translation here:  “succumbed” would sometimes suggest dying in English, but actually the original Chinese was “走火入魔”, which is more like “in too deep” and suggest becoming mentally unstable or going insane.  This word is often used in Wuxia and Xianxia novels to describe characters who were too deeply involved with whatever they were doing to the point of insanity.  The animation also shows the Yaksha standing on a mound of corpses with an eye glowing red.  Perhaps it’s like a Sekiro Shura ending situation:  the Yaksha killed too much and was taken over by bloodlust.  But of course it’s also possible that he died after going crazy.

The story in the Echoes of an Offering artifact set is a lot more fragmented and contains new characters, but it does seem to have a certain connection to the story in the Vermillion Hereafter set.  One of these characters is an adeptus named the “Herblord” (LMAOOOOOOO).  Actually the original Chinese is “药君”, where the character “药” is more about medicinal herbs than just...herbs.  I have seen someone on Reddit propose the translation of “Medicine Adeptus”, which definitely sounds a lot less meme-y lol.  

Another one of these new characters is a giant koi with “rainbow scales”, who eventually sunk into the depths (a word to can be used to characterize both the Chasm and the Abyss) and never came back to the surface again.  Perhaps this giant koi died in the Cataclysm?  Since the Feather of Nascent Light from Vermillion Hereafter set mentions “a fish sinking into a deep pool”.  The “bird plummeting into a forge” part could be about the electro Yaksha, since the two Yakshas whose animal forms we know about so far (Xiao and Pervases) are both birds.

Side note on the description of Feather of Nascent Light:  the end of it says “the land will forever remember”.  Here, the “land” should be understood as the ley lines.

What happened to the Herblord is unknown, but tea and tea-drinking culture from the mountain spread to Liyue Harbor, then all over Teyvat.

The domain where the artifact set comes from is located in the southwest region of Liyue.  In reality, Camellia sinensis, the tea tree (not a shrub btw; they were only kept short so people can have an easier time harvesting the leaves), did originate in and around southwestern China (Yunnan province).  Ancient wild Camellia sinensis trees still grow there to this day, some reaching 2700 years old.  The oldest tea tree in the world at 3200 years old is found in Yunnan (the “Jinxiu Tea King”/锦绣茶王 in Lincang city, Yunnan, picture below).  According to scholars, tea-drinking likely began around Yunnan, but developed into a culture when the practice reached what is present-day Sichuan (then called Shu/蜀), and spread to other areas of China from there, and eventually all over the world.  

[loreism]

Pierro's past is largely a mystery, but is alluded to in Mocking Mask. He failed to gain favor with the past ruler of an unknown country due to being less capable than the other wise men, and could not stop them from doing something that tore away the veil of sin, which brought destruction to the country. For this reason, he became embittered with the "divine" and joined the Tsaritsa's cause.

─ About Pierro, Story.

.

Pierro, the first of the Eleven Fatui Harbingers, mentions a veil of sin which was torn away by the wise men of his original nation, thereby "ushering in a tide of divine wrath, destruction, and foolishness."

While his original nation has not been explicitly stated, there are several indications that it is Khaenri'ah: The term "sinner" is heavily associated with Khaenri'ah during and after the cataclysm, and Khaenri'ah is the only nation known to have faced "divine wrath" and "destruction" immediately before the Fatui's formation in response to said divine wrath.

─ About The Cataclysm, Celestia's Role.

[rapdrak]

The calm always comes before the storm

But sometimes the calm is simple oblivion

And sometimes the storm isn’t a storm

Sometimes it’s an eruption

A powerful explosion that rips the sky

Hot lava sweeping over the earth

Burning in an attempt to melt the hearts of the wicked

The Gods’ anger fully unleashed

But sometimes a heart cannot be melted

A heart of ice is not a heart of stone

Burning makes only the black heart blacker

Thus the powerful survive

Continuing on to wreak havoc

Bringing inevitable destruction in their wake

Impending doom that faces the world itself

Anger that not even the Gods dare to challenge

Until the unchallenged become Gods themselves

But those blackened hearts cannot create 

Kill the true Gods and what is left?

Emptiness irreplaceable 

Damage irreversible

As they seek they find only themselves

In an attempt to gain more

They devour their own souls

The calm always comes before the storm

That is what they say

But sometimes the calm is ignorance

Ignoring the facts of reality

And sometimes the storm is a torturous eternity

A gaping tear in the fabric of time

Bound to suffer until like all stars it collapses on itself

Leaving a wrenching nothingness in its place