Coming on here to add a thought
What if the reason we see those golden lines on zhonglis arms during his archon years because they were open wounds he constantly had because he was always sacrificing his blood and power to make mora.
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Coming on here to add a thought
What if the reason we see those golden lines on zhonglis arms during his archon years because they were open wounds he constantly had because he was always sacrificing his blood and power to make mora.
Probably going to be inactive.
。゜゜(´O`) ゜゜。
Not forever, I might post every once in a while. BUUUUT I think I want to make a new account and start an Art Blog mostly about my own world and OCs. Yes I could make it a side-blog, but I want it to be my main blog. I'm not deactivating this one, but I'll mostly only use this account for my side-blogs which I update primarily on my phone (I don't like associating my side blogs with my main because they are not Genshin related) and they are all pretty much reblogs. Could I rebrand? Yes technically, but it doesn't feel right to change my username or my theme. I don't want to lose it in a way, its all still special to me. I will of course provide a link to my new blog when it is made, I will post any Genshin fan art on there too. I still very much love Zhongli! Most of my posts here will likely be shrine updates or reblogs of eventual fan art of him on my new blog. I just wish to make it clear that I'm not leaving because I love him any less or am uninterested in him anymore.
I can't lie and say this fandom doesn't tire me out though. Drama after drama, hate latest patch this, hate latest character that... its... boring, if not draining, to say the least, and a large part of the reason I procrastinate or lack motivation to make art. So. As I am uninterested in any other fandoms, I wish to focus on my own works.
Was climbing around mt Aocang and saw a bird I couldn't kill
Was UNAWARE you could find yuandai (xianyuns story quest) in the open world.
Zhongli probably does enter his friends and loved ones in their sleep to wake them up from nightmares. More commonly I believe he shows up in peoples dreams to finish his point. If someone and his conversations get cut off for whatever reason THEY WILL see him in their dreams so he can take his sweet time finishing his thesis argument.
thinking of zhongli's fight against time to keep his loved ones by his side. giving some of his power to azhdaha to try stop erosion (the curse of time), his multiple attempts to bring back zibai, even him lamenting barbatos' absence... he talks about how being forced to abandon and surrender the things he loves is perhaps the kind of erosion imposed on him by the heavenly principles. even the hardest rocks may be worn down after 3000 years! rock tries to dam up the river of time and gets eroded himself!!!
Genshin Impact x Alipay Chibi Artworks
for Azhdaha, who was memory and earth, erosion attacked exactly that — his substance, his identity at its most fundamental. for Ei, whose entire philosophy was about preserving an eternal ideal unchanged, erosion threatened the form that housed her will, so she sacrificed the form preemptively to preserve the will. the erosion finds what you are and works on that.
for Zhongli, who is defined by retention (extraordinary memory, record-keeping as purpose) erosion can't touch that directly. So instead it works on his convictions. the things he used to believe steadfast, he now wavers on. you can't make him forget, so instead the world slowly accumulates enough evidence that his beliefs begin to bend under the weight of it.
he's not describing erosion as something that happened to him from outside. he's describing choices he made, sacrifices, sealings, burials. he's contemplating whether the HP designed the system so that doing right by it would itself hollow him out over time. whether faithfulness to the path was always also the mechanism of his erosion.
if his convictions are eroding, what remains most intact is the witnessing.
thinking about zibai changing the whole trajectory of zhongli's life. aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh
guy who was just on teyvat for funsies and wanted to train and become stronger. knows 5000 AncientTM martial art skills and secret techniques. doesn't really care about teyvat and its workings as a world but befriends zibai by chance, who's both an angel and a lunar emissary. she loves humans very very much, something that's programmed into her being and not something he shares. the way the heavenly principles love is indiscriminate, humans as individuals are irrelevant and sacrificing some of them for the greater good is always morally correct. while working with the moons though, she's come to learn to love them individually, so when the HP mandates the destruction of lang-gan, she defies that order and sacrifices herself to save them.
zhongli!!!!! motherfucker!!!!! who made people (me) believe for years is one of the staunchest followers of HPs rules after he took on the job as an archon. who makes you think "ah what a tragic character. he keeps having to sacrifice his friends but he can't even properly mourn that fact because he simply has accepted the duty of Loving Humanity above all, and that always takes priority". who might genuinely feel very deeply for his friends but in the end he'll always let them go bc that's how his character is constructed, he's the One That Outlives Them All and Has Made Peace With That.
yes this fucking guy! actually has NEVER let go. all the shit he did in the past 4000+ years? was a tribute to her.
after zibai not!dies (thanks to the secret technique he taught her), zhongli embarks on a quest to maybe find a way to save her. or maybe that wasn’t the initial goal bc he doesn’t know how feasible it is. what he does is mourn her, grieve for her and commemorate her. zibai died because of her love for lang-gan's people, so lang-gan's people he will protect in her stead. he might not love them like she did but watching over them lies in his power. guy roams around teyvat and befriends guizhong. (hah! another subject he'll have to Mourn). watches humans struggle and try to survive the big upheaval. maybe starts to care abt humans a little bit.
anyways i bet zibai gossiped to him about teyvat's world order and he's very aware that there's something deeply wrong with teyvat. i am convinced that zhongli actively sought out azhdaha because of his identity (dispossessed dragon sovereign, defeated by the HP), he didn't just randomly stumble on that guy and he went to him with a very clear purpose. bc the dragons were part of the Old World, so he goes to him to ask if he knows more about the three moons that were destroyed in the war and if there's a way to go to the lunar palace, where a fragment of zibai's soul resides. either way, the contract he offers azhdaha is thus: i will take you to the surface world if you promise not to harm humans. if you do, i will seal you back into darkness. whether zhongli himself loves and cares about humans is debatable at that point, but ultimately irrelevant intially bc he's doing this for zibai. (inclined to think that he does actually care about humans at this point already bc it adds a very nice layer to the narrative structure where love is something that gets inherited and passed on (from zibai, to zhongli, to azhdaha))
the demon gods (archon) war starts. [insert azhdaha and zhongli positional tension here (i've talked abt that before, whatever)] guizhong dies. the place the two of them ruled over is called guili plains in their memory. azhdaha loses his mind and hurts humans, zhongli seals him away.
the archon war is won. zhongli ascends and makes a contract with the HP to protect and love humanity above all. by this point, that's what he's been doing anyways. we don’t talk about the fact that the HP killed zibai 😊 god. he names the nation he founds after the moon in zibai's memory. 璃月 (glazed moon), after 岩间琉璃…云间月… (jade amongst rocks, moon amidst clouds). and he names his constellations after the jade ritual tools that are used to communicate with the lunar palaces.
it is at this point (fast forward 3600+ years) that zhongli gets introduced to the player. when the player first meets Zhongli, he is a consultant at a funeral parlour in liyue harbor. he is elegant, unhurried, and somewhat absurdly knowledgeable about everything. he also has no money. the first proper thing you learn about him, narratively, is that he has chosen to step down from his position as the geo archon and surrender his divine power — that he has decided, after six thousand years, that humanity is ready to stand on its own. it reads initially as a kind of graceful retirement. someone who has fulfilled his duty and knows when to stop.
then you get into the erosion stuff (him acknowledging that further following this path laid out by the HP where he has to sacrifice his friends for humanity) and about the tsarista contract stuff and hopefully after reading this word vomit, the first chapter of teyvat is thoroughly reframed in your mind <3
I really gotta thank XHS(rednote) for existing for many reasons, but in particular for its art tutorials.
I can find a lot of great art tutorials anywhere, but scarcely in anime/manga styles. It's all mostly western style cartoons and realism, and it's been a huge obstacle in learning to draw because learning to draw in those styles doesn't help me to learn to draw the way i want to at all. I don't even need to understand chinese to follow along either.
Anyway i learned that a good chunk of the reason why i cant find good historical architectural references, especially for homes, is because they arent really taught in china anymore, not in schools atleast, its all western architecture. Ive been able to find better stuff on rednote, but half of it is made by AI. Basically you gotta live there and visit basically every province if you wanna have a chance at learning enough about the architecture to draw it like you could any western building. Which is sad but i will continue to look and learn
Anyway if anyone has any references of literally any chinese architecture, but preferably homes, and shops and such, not giant palaces (i can find so many palaces), that also havent been modernized or AI generated that would be so lovely if you would kindly share them with me. Youd be my friend forever plz.
Aaaahhh
I've set my vacation from mid to late may and now i just have to wait for it to be approved. I really want to work on my art more, ive made some progress, but I just dont have the energy to draw full works...
All i want to do right now is sleep. I want to curl up in bed and sleep forever. I'm going to take a whole 10 days off (4 days of that are my regular weekends). I would try to save up more time for 2 weeks but I am so tired.
I'm nowhere near good enough at chinese to translate the language, but i took a small crack at zhonglis voice line for hu tao. It absolutely infuriates me that people understand it to be him hating hu tao, or resenting her. Because even before listening to the english voice over for it, it always seemed more like she was just the kind of person he couldn't get a hold on.
As we know from Gaming and his father, zhongli is very good with people and subtly guiding them in either the direction that's best for them, or to serve his own purposes, a necessary skill for an archon, god of contracts, and a leader in war. Zhongli is INCREDIBLY used to being the one in charge, and i think thats a huge thing people overlook, that not only is hu tao his boss, but she is actually capable of being his boss. With most people it would actually be really easy for him to take over as boss or just be granted the title, but not with hu tao. Hu tao is one of the very few people he is incapable of entirely bringing under his command, at least with the position he is currently in yet i still like to think she would give him trouble regardless. Hu tao is just like that.
So while i think that might frustrate him or even baffle him, if you listen to the chinese voiceover for it he doesn't sound angry at all. He sounds more defeated than anything and is being honest about it.
The attitude or mood did not translate well in english and for once i cant really say the written translation was bad
Heres all the characters below (starting with his "ahem" because the first part isnt important)
And heres the dictionary provided example of "不来" "bù lái"
So a more literal translation would look something like this:
"ahem... That child I handle can not."
So it is correct. However i wanna point out that calling someone a "child" in english is considered rude or meant as an insult towards someone, and i think thats what throws so many people off. Thats not to say they don't ever do the same thing in china, but it's within a different context.
Hu tao is somewhat still a child? Obviously ages arent confirmed but after 5-6 years of lantern rites, she would realistically, in the real world, be an adult, but this voice line is very old and couldnt honestly be out dated
And honestly there is no supporting evidence to show resentment towards her. He wasn't annoyed when she "snuck up" behind him in a lantern rite cutscene, he wasn't annoyed when she sent him out to buy sesame oil, he reads novels based on her recommendations/what she asked him to buy for her, he showed genuine care for her during the tao dou lantern rite. He was going with her to visit her families graves/shrine (idr which).
Like I'm not a shipper of these two personally(self shipper), but idk how people could say zhongli hates hu tao regardless. You must remember that these mundane things and whims, while he knows exists among mortals, are new to actually experience and handle on a personal level. (And Hu Tao is that x100.) Especially from someone who is now your boss after not having a boss... Ever.
(i will never stop talking about this so long as people keep using the english translation and VO as the basis and source for all the things they claim about the game and its characters. That's a secondary source! Its unreliable! Idc if it is a translation, translators and localizers are often biased and wrong!)
Yee i talked about that a little in my tags it just felt annoying to put all of it on the post itself because its very much a rant of sorts.
Bad localizations/translations of asian media just really really piss me off.
I'm nowhere near good enough at chinese to translate the language, but i took a small crack at zhonglis voice line for hu tao. It absolutely infuriates me that people understand it to be him hating hu tao, or resenting her. Because even before listening to the english voice over for it, it always seemed more like she was just the kind of person he couldn't get a hold on.
As we know from Gaming and his father, zhongli is very good with people and subtly guiding them in either the direction that's best for them, or to serve his own purposes, a necessary skill for an archon, god of contracts, and a leader in war. Zhongli is INCREDIBLY used to being the one in charge, and i think thats a huge thing people overlook, that not only is hu tao his boss, but she is actually capable of being his boss. With most people it would actually be really easy for him to take over as boss or just be granted the title, but not with hu tao. Hu tao is one of the very few people he is incapable of entirely bringing under his command, at least with the position he is currently in yet i still like to think she would give him trouble regardless. Hu tao is just like that.
So while i think that might frustrate him or even baffle him, if you listen to the chinese voiceover for it he doesn't sound angry at all. He sounds more defeated than anything and is being honest about it.
The attitude or mood did not translate well in english and for once i cant really say the written translation was bad
Heres all the characters below (starting with his "ahem" because the first part isnt important)
And heres the dictionary provided example of "不来" "bù lái"
So a more literal translation would look something like this:
"ahem... That child I handle can not."
So it is correct. However i wanna point out that calling someone a "child" in english is considered rude or meant as an insult towards someone, and i think thats what throws so many people off. Thats not to say they don't ever do the same thing in china, but it's within a different context.
Hu tao is somewhat still a child? Obviously ages arent confirmed but after 5-6 years of lantern rites, she would realistically, in the real world, be an adult, but this voice line is very old and couldnt honestly be out dated
And honestly there is no supporting evidence to show resentment towards her. He wasn't annoyed when she "snuck up" behind him in a lantern rite cutscene, he wasn't annoyed when she sent him out to buy sesame oil, he reads novels based on her recommendations/what she asked him to buy for her, he showed genuine care for her during the tao dou lantern rite. He was going with her to visit her families graves/shrine (idr which).
Like I'm not a shipper of these two personally(self shipper), but idk how people could say zhongli hates hu tao regardless. You must remember that these mundane things and whims, while he knows exists among mortals, are new to actually experience and handle on a personal level. (And Hu Tao is that x100.) Especially from someone who is now your boss after not having a boss... Ever.
(i will never stop talking about this so long as people keep using the english translation and VO as the basis and source for all the things they claim about the game and its characters. That's a secondary source! Its unreliable! Idc if it is a translation, translators and localizers are often biased and wrong!)
Thinking about using making comics as a way to practice writing in chinese and learning new words/practicing recognizing learned words. Also grammar.
Its one thing to learn characters but i need to learn how to put them together better.
Anyway if ever in the future i do this, please excuse my horrid writing, and I don't just mean handwriting...
Been watching a lot of traditional chinese handmade crafts on rednote, and ive been seeing a lot of ones where they make calligraphy brushes. They use real fur and some look soft and some look more coarse.
This has me thinking of zhongli making me a set of brushes as a gift using his own fur from his dragon form. There's no better fur in the whole world to use for brushes.
Kinda realized that in like 5-6 years (however long genshin has been going) i havent changed the nation that i get commissions from since i unlocked liyues...so i havent even see what the other nations commissions are XD
WHAT
This is straight up something i refuse to believe is canon
They will add wolves to wolvendom after years but not a couple horses
BUT they will make an ENTIRE horse lantern AND talk about how the horse lanterns trot looks weird
BUT THEY WONT ADD HORSES
i think personally its because they dont want to give us mounts.
They made those sumpter beasts in sumeru and their only purpose is pulling carts and cargo and they can be ridden
They let us ride a dinosaur, they let is ride a chariot, they will give a cool animation to flying on ventis wind (witches homework quest for venti), they gave us a BOAT which cant be used everywhere.
But they won't model and animate horses.
And its stupid really, but it would also render many characters skills moot even if the horse is slower, than say yelan for instance, because you can ride a horse for ages.
So like idc what this lanternrite quest says
There are horses in teyvat and there really is not any reason for hoyo to pretend they don't exist in any nation ever. They could just put them around and not let is ride them, but nooooo. Really all they are doing is annoying us and making us want to be able to ride horses more. Like people would prefer to have to buy the damn horse instead of this.
Aaaa i know all this has been said before but i mean it. Personally I usually love sticking to canon as much as i can, but this is so dumb and unnecessary.
does anyone have the cn version of zhongli’s ‘heaven’s star’ title? if the source was the moment where zibai called him that in the last LR quest that’d be great,,, just pinyin or pronunciation is okay too (please help me)
i know he has his burst and stuff named tiānxīng but its usually translated as heavenly star so idk if its the same ahhh,,,
Its "Tianxing"
钟离在葬火之前的身份是『岩主天星』the Lord of GEO... http://xhslink.com/o/2FkfPm10t50
So the full title is "Yanwang Dijun Tianxing"