#like genshin is very much a game that does encourage you to try different character combinations and to keep using your faves even if they

[menstits]

agreed. i play a lot of gachas, and genshin is BY FAR the most easy to save primos with. it was the first gacha with a guaranteed pity system(i think hi3 also had it at first but it wasnt as well known internationally), to the point that gachas like fgo had to add their own (wich is still way worse than genshin) of course, its still gacha, and still bad, but games like cr and arknights who get sold as "having a better system" really dont have it, nor do they have a guaranteed pity in the first place.

The other two gachas i was big into before genshin were love live school idol festival and cookie run ovenbreak back in the day, and both of them were WAY more predatory than genshin imo like purely in terms of how the game itself and the gacha worked. Love live was evil because no matter how much you pulled you weren't really guaranteed anything above SR rarity which was insane in retrospect like i legit played that game for like two years without getting a single UR card, while cookie run was like. The sort of game that becomes completely unplayable unless you have the most recently released character because that's how bad the powercreep was. The thing about genshin is that technically you ARE able to get through the entirety of the storyline and exploration using only the characters they give you (traveler, kaeya, lisa, amber, xiangling, noelle, barbara, collei... That's quite a few at this point). Does anyone actually play like that? Pretty much only masochistic gamer youtubers tend to do that but still it IS technically an option for someone who doesn't give a single shit about collecting characters or fighting and mainly cares about exploring. I absolutely would still NOT recommend the game to someone who has a history of gacha addiction or who has a tendency to develop addictions in general because ofc it's inherently a bit evil by virtue of being a gacha but tbh that goes for any gacha on god's green earth

#like... 'powercreep' in genshin is only an issue if you're some kind of hardcore spiral abyss player #i do not touch spiral abyss with a 3 foot pole BUT my boyfriend who's also f2p plays it regularly and gets through it fine #like genshin is very much a game that does encourage you to try different character combinations and to keep using your faves even if they #get powercrept because a lame ass character by themselves can be helped a lot with the right supports #i know that whales will dump a character as soon as a new better one comes out #but I'm not like that i persevere as a diluc main even if he SUCKS forever #asks #anonymous

[apompkwrites]

reader impact || first meeting

series masterlist characters: xiao, albedo genre: fluff summary: a game has been released entitled genshin impact, consisting of otherworldly abilities relying on the basic elements of nature. the game follows the story of an interdimensional traveling twin in search of their other half. along this journey, they meet different characters that live in this world. including you. notes: have i read a few genshin impact x game character reader stories and impulsively decided to make one too? maybe. you can't prove anything. i don't know if this will be a series but we'll see :D

xiao's playthrough -

xiao, named as alatus on his streaming platform, has made himself known as a gaming streamer with an awkward personality and blunt words.

he's the type of streamer who wouldn't have a set type of game and would, instead, play whatever his viewers recommended.

valorant? sure, he'll try it out.

hitman? why not?

animal crossing? it's a complete 180 from the other games, but sure.

when one of his viewers recommended genshin impact, he was quick to say yes and search for the game.

once the game finishes downloading, he quickly begins the game.

once the opening cutscene passes, he compliments the overall aesthetic of the game, pointing out the smaller details such as the footprints made by his character and the sound their clothes make when they move.

as always, his expressions are quite monotone to a point where it seems nothing draws his attention towards the game.

one of his mods, however, knows xiao well enough to where he knows which character he would like.

they convince xiao that the game is worth sticking with towards the second half of chapter 1, act 1.

he doesn't understand but he trusts his mods so he promises to continue.

it takes a few hours, especially because of the grinding, but a few streams later he's finally made it.

after fighting a one-sided argument with cloud retainer, he immediately begins his trek to the wangshu inn. and yes, trek, he enjoys walking/gliding through the world of teyvat rather than fast traveling everywhere.

he walks up the stairs to the top floor of the inn, resting his hands in his lap as the cutscene begins.

"to the blind, everything may not be as it appears..."

xiao is normally stoic during games, even ones with scenes made to fluster the player and catch them off guard.

but not this time.

once xiao's character is faced with yours, he just stops. his chat is spamming messages, asking if he's okay and if he's actually emoting for once.

he just stares at your character for a good five minutes.

and trust me, at least half of his viewers clipped that.

"... who are they?"

that was his only question after those minutes of silence. never before had he been attached to a character within the first few minutes of meeting them. his mind is racing and all he can think about is how amazing your character design is and how nice your voice is and how cool your character is and--

oh right, he's streaming right now...

anyway, the more your conversation goes on, the more he loves your character.

you're just so sassy and snappy but he loves you either way.

once you turn away with your back towards the camera, he just stares.

he stares at the intricate tattoo on your exposed arm and the mask hanging off of your belt.

and then you're gone.

his face drops so quickly and his viewers are very quick to point it out. he grimaces once paimon starts talking and he's very tempted to just speed through her dialogue.

he just wants to see you again.

once he hears from verr goldet that you've never smiled (at least around her), he immediately turns to the camera and says, "we better make them smile in this game."

once he finds out about your favorite food, he's already asking his viewers if he's able to get the recipe for it.

the next time he gets to talk to you, his face just lights up once he sees your character standing on the balcony.

however, once his characters tell you about rex lapis's death, his heart sinks when he hears how sad your voice becomes, even if your tone is still as harsh as before.

he gets all sad again when the quest ends and he has to wait to unlock the next archon quest.

he ends the game there and decides to spend the last few minutes talking to his viewers.

"i'll stream genshin again soon."

his viewers all know it's only because he met you.

albedo's playthrough -

albedo often does art streams and the occasional science-y stream.

if he does games, he mainly uses them to admire the art/mechanics of the gameplay.

genshin impact was one of those games he decided to play on his own solely because of the beautiful scenary.

(and the opportunity to draw more characters).

he's definitely the player that cares about elemental reactions above all else. pretty much every character he uses is built for elemental damage instead of physical.

most of his genshin streams are him walking around teyvat and pointing out the scenary.

he was definitely excited for the dragonspine event because that meant a better view of teyvat!

what he wasn't prepared for, however, was the reveal of a new character: you.

he isn't too into looking at the updates for genshin on his own, so he didn't find out about who you were until his stream asked about it.

he decided to react to the newest updates live since his chat seemed excited to hear his input.

once he pulled up the latest update details, he spent a few minutes talking about the new subzero mechanic.

but once he scrolled down to the characters... OH BOY

he's able to keep his composure but he definitely spends longer talking about you.

he almost gasped when he saw you were the chief alchemist of mondstadt.

combine that with the fact that you rely on elemental damage instead of physical...

your honor, he's fallen hard.

he'll put a countdown on stream to when your character and event drops, even on his non-genshin streams.

speaking of those streams, on the week just before your event, his streams will all be based around you and the information he's seen on you.

his art streams will consist of you and how he thinks your attacks will work just based on the description (he purposely avoided all pictures of your attacks for this stream).

his science-y streams would probably be based on your element.

once your event drops, that's the only thing he'll stream until it's over.

your assistant used to be his favorite character to play as but they just never clicked. it's not like he hates your assistant, it's just he didn't immediately fall in love with them.

his party definitely has your assistant in it, though.

he would have normally taken his time to look around dragonspine and admire the new scenery, but he couldn't help but speed through it until he finally gets to see you onscreen.

once the cutscene officially introduces you in front of a canvas, he's internally panicking.

you like art too?! and science?! how perfect can you be?!?!?!

he will genuinely feel bad when he scares the hilichurls because he knows that that's what you were sketching.

"who are you? why did you alarm them?"

NOW HE FEELS EVEN WORSE

even when you tell him you've finished sketching, he wants to make it up to you :((

if he were able to, he would've lured more hilichurls to let you sketch more.

some people in his chat would probably spam him to skip your dialogue because it's so wordy, but that's the exact reason why he listens to it all.

he likes listening to your character ramble on, especially because you have a soothing voice.

anytime your character does their idle animation where you give life to something, he will always let it play. even if your dialogue is finished before the animation, he would not progress until it's completed.

once your character asks for help, he would immediately agree before you finished your sentence.

man just wants to spend more time with you.

he likes staring at the tattoo on your neck whenever the camera is close to you. he just thinks it's really pretty on you.

once your other nonplayable assistant begins talking, he'll skip through the dialogue. he doesn't care if it goes more in depth into this world's alchemy, he just wants to hear it from you.

"hmm, looks like the potion's ready. i'll try a little first."

"please don't..."

he doesn't want you to try it just in case it hurts you :(

anytime he is allowed to walk freely with you around, he'd definitely put his traveler character next to you for a few minutes and just let you two stare at each other.

someone asks him why he spends a few minutes doodling on his desk when you talk.

he shows them the notebook that he had been writing notes in. it's filled with little doodles of you and some more information you give on the world of alchemy.

for future streams the involve you, he'd set up another camera to show the notes and doodles he's making about you.

sometimes he'll spend a few minutes on a single section where the camera is focused on you just to recreate the picture in the notebook.

he absolutely loves whoever planned out the camera angles because of how cute you look in every one of them.

he definitely gets a bad vibe from rosaria when she hints at the fact that you may be using alchemy against him.

he will defend you and alchemy to his grave!

that one scene where you create a flower in front of you is one he will always treasure.

he makes sure someone clipped that moment just so he can draw that, make it a print, and put it on his wall.

since most of his viewers most likely consist of artists, he will encourage them to draw you and send him fanart. he will put them all on a wall and dedicate every picture that goes there to you.

"if i one day lose control... destroy mondstadt... as well as everything around it..."

"huh?"

"will you be there to stop me?"

"wait... no."

if people were only listening to that portion, they would still be able to hear the pout on his face.

he'll end the game there but change his stream into an impromptu art stream.

he will only be drawing you in nice situations to distract himself from the fact that there is something going on with you.

"hm? what do you mean something's wrong with (name)? i have no idea what you're talking about."

poor boy's in denial...

#genshin impact x reader #genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin impact headcanons #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact scenarios #reader impact #genshin impact fluff #genshin impact xiao #genshin impact albedo #xiao x reader #albedo x reader #genshin xiao #genshin albedo #genshin impact xiao x reader #genshin impact albedo x reader #genshin xiao x reader #genshin albedo x reader

[coco-goat-milk]

Hello! May I request the kids with a Rengoku! Reader? I feel like his character’s overall energy would serve great with them, especially as an older sibling!

Rengoku! reader x Klee, Qiqi and Diona (platonic)

Pronounce: She/him/they, no pronounce mentioned so i won't either!

Warning: Slight spoilers for Rengoku, Qiqi and Diona, Mentions of alcohol, Mentions of Ganyu x reader

A/n: Moshi moshi~ cutie, Yes i agree! I really think this dynamic is adorable<3 Oh and I'm back everyone, and I'm sorry it’s so short :)

Reblog, comments and likes are highly appreciated!!!

Klee

First time meeting:

When you first arrived in Mondstadt to help the knights of favonius bc they are lazy you also got introduced to Klee, at first you were shocked that a child was a knight.

She was immediately amazed by you, first of all you look so cool! Second of all you were very...uh.. bright.

She immediately ran up to you asking for your name.

You were immediately enamored with the cute child and decided that you would surprise adopt her.

When you two get closer:

ARSON

No but seriously whenever she blows up fish in the lake you would just encourage her. Basically you stand beside the lake and laugh brightly while she blasts fish into oblivion.

Each time she sees you she always runs towards you expecting hugs!

She also loves playing with you whenever you can, mostly it involves fish blasting or searching for flowers.

She loves it when you braid her hair, especially when the two of you take a picnic and she makes a flower crown.

She really loves listening to you talking about all your fight stories, she will boast about you to the other knights about how cool and strong you are.

Whenever you two get something to eat and you yell “UMAI” in the beginning she is kinda shocked but soon after she joins in.

Whenever she eats anything and it tastes good she yells “UMAI” it has become a habit for her. The first time she did it people looked at her scared but she just kept going.

Whenever she is confinement she draws pictures of you and her together <3

She also likes to play games with you like tag and hide and seek, she also enjoys watching you fight.

You always make sure that she doesnt hurt herself nor cry, so that often leads towards her getting her way with you. (i mean bombing fishes and such)

She really enjoys your warm and big cuddles<3

When the two of you walk through Mondstadt she always asks for you to hold her, and who are you to deny that! You always place her on your shoulder while the two of you laugh brightly.

Klee really wants to cook or bake with you, and she wants to wear matching aprons!

Kawaii (人◕ω◕)

Oh and the two of your aesthetics match it’s adorable :3

Qiqi

First time meeting:

She questioned the honesty of your bright smile-

But she soon understood that everything about you was sincere.

She really liked how honest and nice you were, she hadn't felt that joy in a long time :/

You thought she was adorable, she reminded you of your own little sibling.

Snek man was busy so you took Qiqi outside to play <3

She liked you very much even though she forgot your name a lot of times :p

When you two get closer:

She doesn't really remember people that much but she remembers you! Because of your bright smile and bright aesthetic.

And she always tries to scribble as many details about you down in her notepad<3

She really enjoys the concern and honest love you give her.

unlike someone else who is fake asf

She always looks forward to your visits :)

Since you yourself have a little brother you can take good care of her, she is a little different then other kids but you still treat her like one!

She is very happy with that although it's not really obvious, you know she is!

It's kind of funny how your personalities contrast each other-

You are very protective over her. When she told you about Hu tao, you would rescue her

Sometimes she questions how you can be so enthusiastic.

She doesn't really ask you for a lot of things, but she sometimes asks you if you bought her Coco goat milk (my username ;) and whenever she asks for something you bring it to her in a heartbeat<3

The first time you looked for Coco goat milk you found this beautiful girl, the girl was honestly shocked by your slightly obnoxious behavior but she found you cute and really sweet. She helped you search for ‘coco goat milk’ but it ended up being coconut milk.

Now everytime you visit Qiqi you bring her Coconut milk, she will have this small cute smile on her face. Which makes you smile even more oh my how bright can you get?

You like to bring her to walk around Liyue, you always hold her hand so she doesn't get lost. People sometimes get scared because of your loud voice booming over anyone else's.

She likes to take picnics with you and Ganyu, it gives her this unfamiliar but happy feeling of family!

Qiqi is lowkey a matchmaker for you and Ganyu, she makes the two of you hold hands and while Ganyu lowkey dies with a red face your laugh is as bright as the sun.

Your bright and happy presence always manages to give Qiqi a small smile on her face.

Whenever she is sleepy while you two are away you pick her up and try to be as quiet as possible.

Diona

First time meeting:

In the beginning she didn't like you because she thought you drank alcohol, but then you just asked for a normal drink?? What, how is that possible…

When you found out that basically a kid was working in a winery, you thought you were drunk.

Like honestly why is a kid working with alcohol, anyways you decided to ignore him since y’know Genshin logic.

She was kind of rude in the beginning until you decided to just order some drink without alcohol, suddenly she was kind of you.

You really sat there like ( ´･‿･`)?

Anyways, you decided to spend time with the kid because your caring sibling side decided to act up.

When you two get closer:

You don’t drink alcohol whenever you are with her, she appreciates it so much but she doesn't say that ofc.

She huffs whenever you pat her head but she secretly loves it <3 She expects headpats whenever the two of you meet up.

She really wants to go hunting with you as well, and when you show off your strength she will be so amazed :3

^You are now officially her idol, she looks up to you so much.

Diona wants you to teach her tricks with her sword, because the moment she saw you fight with your sword she was enamored.

You do not like her dad...honestly who does..but anyways you full on ignore him and try to ignore him as much as you can. Because of that you are pretty protective over her as well.

She actually enjoys it whenever you bring her gifts, quite likes it when you gift her plushies and bring her homemade sweet potatoes.

Was very embarrassed when you yelled out ‘UMAI’ and scolded you for it, but when someone looks at you weirdly be ready for a hissing kitty with her nails bared at the person.

She doesn't like it when others take away your attention, Diona will attack those people.

(omg im so sorry but i don't have more headcanons-)

#genshin klee #klee x reader #genshin qiqi #qiqi x reader #diona genshin impact #genshin diona #diona x reader #genshin impact x reader #genshin x y/n #genshin fluff #genshin x reader #genshin headcanons #ganyu x y/n #ganyu x reader

[mewberii]

Streamer!Scaramouche [2]

thanks for all the support in the first part! i wrote a second part where scaramouche plays genshin + the reader comes in (i tried to make it as gender neutral as possible, so let me know if there’s something off!). you’re a close friend of scaramouche and also a voice actor!

i had been planning this since i wrote the first part, but because i was busy and uninspired i couldn’t finish it. but here it is and it’s actually pretty long (over 5k words...)! i hope you guys will like this!! obviously he’s a little nicer than he is in game but,,, for the sake of the plot + it being a modern au, it had to be done sjnfdskjf

He was selected to play the beta for genshin because of his popularity and tbh he really wanted to play it

The game hadn’t really caught his eye all that much when he first heard about it but he saw how everyone online went crazy over it (plus other streamers who also were selected to play it in early access kept talking about it) and he became more curious to know what it would be like and if it’d live to everyone’s expectations

However he couldn’t really play it until it was officially released because he had a very busy schedule, and when he saw other streams of people playing it he was,,, lowkey jealous because it did look fun

When it was finally released and the game finished downloading and installing, he went live right away

And since so many people were looking forward to seeing him play plus the game was getting so popular so fast, that stream of when he first played hit his biggest milestone of live viewers ever

ANYWAYS skip forward to further into the game

when it comes to the gacha,,,

we’ve established that this boy is loaded. he won’t hesitate to throw some big amounts of money at the game to get every single character and weapon he wants and get their constellations to the max

i feel like he’d make little bets (and it works as a way to thank the chat for the support) like “if i get (insert newest character) in the first 50 pulls, i will gift 50 subs”

he’d be SOOOOOOO LUCKY it’d make everyone who doesn’t play think that it must be very easy to get the 5 stars or that the drop rate must be very high,,,

so in the end he’d have to gift the subs and it’d be funny to see the chat go absolutely crazy because everyone is commenting at the same time trying to see if they got lucky too and got the sub

but the chat goes so fast that they can’t even see their own comment after they send it sNDJGDJSK 

he’d end up turning subs mode on for a while because it goes crazy

and that’s when he’d see people going “I GOT THE SUB-” all excited and he can’t help but chuckle and congratulate them for being one of the lucky ones

probably another game he can use to play with some subs once in a while! they could play co-op and when he’s a very high level he’d go to the worlds of some of his subs with lower level to help them with whatever they need

SO, LITTLE SKIP HERE

this is where i want the reader to slide into the picture

you’d be a voice actor, and also you have been a friend of his for a very long time

he met you even before he started streaming and you were always so supportive of him, as he was of every and each of your dreams

in fact, he would have invited you over more than once to stream with him

people don’t say anything bc they’re afraid of scaramouche banning them (it’s happened before) + they understand it can be disrespectful... but…

some people lowkey ship you two a little bit,,,,,, you didn’t hear it from me. scaramouche don’t ban me----

so one day he’s making another livestream playing genshin (sponsored by mihoyo to promote the newest update and event) and they’re going to release a new character 

AND he has told everyone that you are the voice actor of the new character, who will be introduced in the event and is also getting their own banner

so everyone is very curious of what they’ll be like, if scaramouche will try to get them (obviously he will, he has every single character…. the amount of money he has put into the game…. just thinking of it gives me the heebie-jeebies) 

could he even,,, main them,,,,

spoiler: he won’t because he’ll stay honest till the end (and no hard feelings) but there are other characters that he has built up to the max just like them and still work better with the way he plays but he’ll still find a chance to use them often

he didn’t know anything of what the character you voiced would be like because you wanted to keep it a surprise and he knew his audience would enjoy seeing his first reactions

I think the character you voice in the game would have the role that Scaramouche has in the actual game, and their design would be fairly similar (maybe similar color palette) to the design fans made for him as a genshin character (the one i mentioned that he uses for popup notifs of subscriptions and all!)

needless to say he’d absolutely love their personality and the charisma you showed in their lines

of course when he finally gets them he shows everything about them including all their voice lines and he compliments y/n’s voice acting… that was the first time people suspected that....

mayhaps… scaramouche….

has feelings for you....

it’s in the soft gaze in his eyes,,, the gentle smile on his lips,,, his soft voice when saying “I think this one is my favorite line of theirs”

and just how BRIGHT AND BEAUTIFUL his laugh sounds when someone comments he should invite you and ask you to do that voiceline live for him and everyone else

he’d jokingly reach for his phone and be like “should i call them? i could” 

(but he wouldn’t because he doesn’t want to disturb you, you may be busy, considering you still hadn’t replied to the messages he sent to you before he started the stream a few hours ago)

if anyone dares be mean to you saying you got the chance to voice act for genshin just bc of scaramouche

or implies that he did something to get you there he’ll get quite mad even tho he won’t speak up about it (he might if enough people say it) 

people can see something shift in his gaze,,,, and he bans them permanently right away

it’d be kinda funny when he does those “reading unban requests” streams and he goes past immediately rejecting people who said those kind of stuff, not even reading the apologies JSNKJFNDSJKGNSDK

some people say he’s too strict about it but literally his stream his rules. people who don’t like him should just not watch him

and people who like him should NOT speak badly about you or doubt your talent and effort, which is what brought you that opportunity in the first place

one day he’d be streaming playing the game, he had been using your character and gathering materials to get their last ascension

and at one point he’d grab his phone and look at the screen for a second before putting it back down and saying he had planned something else for tonight besides playing genshin for a while

then, the doorbell would ring (before he could even close the game-) and it’d be heard from his setup room so people in the chat heard it and they’re all like???

it’s definitely not takeout because scaramouche never orders takeout when he’s on his own, he usually cooks for himself and just orders it when he’s with friends and they all feel like eating something different

actually, offtopic, but i have a feeling he’d be very responsible when it comes to food and like he’d cook himself proper meals all perfectly balanced and all- he could afford having someone cook for him but his house = his privacy and personal space so he’d rather do it himself

it’s like, past 10pm, so no way it would be a package or mail at that time

and then he says “we have a visitor tonight”

and then the chat goes crazy saying “CHILDE” “HARBINGERS” but mostly “Y/N!??!?/PLEASE LET IT BE Y/N”

AND IT WAS YOU!!!!

and omg you brought takeout--------

it had been a while since they had seen you in scaramouche’s stream and you didn’t have your own channel (even though there were many people who encouraged you to open one)

SO everyone was very excited

i feel like scaramouche wouldn’t be the biggest fan of eating on camera so you guys would put the food away so that you can eat it later on your own without an audience

and you two would just spend a while talking to the chat, watching videos

AND reviewing fanart and fanmade content together!! it’d be so cute especially fanarts of the two of you together, little animatics or comics of funny clips or memes from his streams of you two,,,

someone made a little felt plushie of the genshin character you voiced and the way you COOED because it was SO cute

only those who were truly paying attention were able to notice the soft smile on scaramouche’s lips and the way he looked at you as you gushed over how cute the little plushie is and how talented the person who made it is!!

also you’d tell him you saw signora make a stream where she talked to some of her fans on discord individually to give them advice on their life/problems (nothing too serious) and it was very funny and you wanted to do that with him someday

and he’s like “that… could be a huge mess. people could say some crazy stuff” and you’re like “NO but i talked to her about it and she said she got her mods to talk to them first and approve them before they moved them up to the channel where she was to talk to her”

and he’s like “still…….. what if people lie and then when they get to talk to us they say something-”

and you’re like “BOY!!!! DO YOU NOT TRUST YOUR FANS *GASP*” and everyone in the chat is also going “GASP” “HE DOESN’T TRUST US…” “IS THIS YOUR IDOL…..?” “SAY SORRY” (all good fun, obviously he’d love to talk to everyone if he could make sure there won’t be anything disrespectful said)

SO!!!!! you two say you’ll plan to do something like that soon and everyone is very excited, they can already tell it’ll be both super cute and hilarious

before he ends the stream, you two watch some videos together

some are about some upcoming videogames and he talks about them and what he knows and explaining things to you... he is.. so knowledgeable…

the way you look at him as he goes into a little rant about it… cinematic parallels with the way he looked at you before

ONCE AGAIN, people aren’t blind. they notice. but they keep it to themselves bc scary scara (the way i had to resist overusing this one joke with his name-)

so the stream ends and you two walk out of the setup room to go to his living room and eat the takeout you brought while watching something on tv

he apologises because the food is cold now, but you brush it off saying it’s ok, you had missed being on his streams and you two can just heat up the food again

he doesn’t look at you in the eyes as he mutters that you know you can join his streams whenever, and instead just says it as he makes his way to the kitchen to heat the food

you join him in the kitchen soon after and tell him you also bought something for dessert and put it in the fridge already before

and honestly he didn’t know how much he wanted to eat that dessert until it was in his fridge, so he can’t stop himself from sighing and saying “god, i love you”

there’s silence for a second, right as the microwave beeps as it finished heating the food

it feels eternal to him, but you immediately started laughing and said jokingly “of course you do! you’re welcome!” 

he’s happy you took it as a joke because that’s not how he planned to confess (he didn’t plan to confess anytime soon in the first place) but at the same time ?? he’s lowkey offended inside because? you took it as a joke?? is it so unrealistic that you wouldn’t even think that he meant it romantically?

it’s at that moment that he realises that if he didn’t want to confess before, now he does.

he wouldn’t want anyone to know about how he let that slip because he’s sure no one in you two’s friend group even knows he likes you

but you,,, actually,,,,, were actually caught off guard too because scaramouche wasn’t precisely one for words of affection and he showed his care for everyone with his actions

in fact, you had never heard him say those words before but well- it was kinda nice- if only he meant it as you feel it- but he couldn’t, right? who’d confess their feelings so casually while looking at a dessert in the fridge with desire-------

that night, it gets pretty late and to be honest he’s a little too tired to drive you home as he usually would, so he asks if you’d like to sleep over

it wouldn’t be your first time doing so, not even the first time you stayed unplanned, and he had a couple guest rooms that you could use so you accepted

also, staying for longer meant you could keep watching some more of that series with him without worrying about it getting late

or,,,

“actually” you said in a low voice, almost a whisper, since it was getting late and you two had been in complete silence while watching the series “i lowkey still wanted to stream some more”

he scoffs but then lets out a short chuckle, replying in the same volume

“it’s past 2am, who’s going to watch me stream now?”

“i would” have mercy for his poor heart- “but i’d be the streamer too this time so it doesn’t count” 

“what even would we do”

“can we play that co-op game you played with childe? it was so much fun” 

had you not brought it up, he wouldn’t have offered that ever because? if he had recently played it with childe he didn’t want to stream it again and make it feel repetitive for his audience 

(jokes on him because when genshin came out they put up with it being the only thing he streamed for over a week. they’d rewatch any game if it’s you two playing it)

but to be honest, he didn’t really want to stream anymore that day and just wanted to be with you, just you and no one else

he got up from the couch and walked towards the hallway, making you look up to him in confusion for a second, but then started getting excited knowing this meant he was going to let you play it with him

“i don’t really feel like streaming anymore today, but we can still play it. let’s go”

the next day, you two wake up around the same time and make breakfast together

scaramouche i feel is not very talkative in the mornings 

in fact, i feel like he’s just not the most talkative in general. he’s more the type to listen, but it’s different during his streams because he’s doing what he loves and talking about what he loves

and when it comes to you and he talks more it’s because he’s talking to who he loves----

before you’re going to leave and you’re standing at the door about to say goodbye to him, he suddenly speaks up before you can

“do you want to go somewhere tomorrow?”

you raise your eyebrows in curiosity from the sudden request, but then smile at him and nod

“yeah sure! what do you have in min-”

“it’s a date” he said, interrupting you, which was weird enough of him (since he would never interrupt you), but his words were even weirder-

“h-huh?” you felt the heat rising to your cheeks, and scaramouche just repeated his words

on the outside, he looked so casual and just, confident- bUT INSIDE he was actually panicking a little bit 

but just a little bit.

After a moment, you smiled at him again, this time somewhat more shily but also excited for your date!

“I look forward to it”

Just with that, you two knew you had made the first step

You weren’t just friends anymore

You two had hung out on your own many times before, in fact and as it was mentioned before, you two had even slept over at his house or yours many times before

but it had all always been purely platonic, and you guys had never even questioned that aspect of it even after realising you had romantic feelings for each other

he’d spend the rest of the day thinking of what you could do the next day, as if he hadn’t been brainstorming for ideas all night either

i feel like he hasn’t gone in many (if not any--) dates before

solely because he has never been interested in romance plus he had never liked someone or at least, not as much as he liked you

and even when he found out he felt something for you, he just always told himself he was okay with how things were, because he’d never experienced anything beyond friendship and didn’t feel the need to try and maybe ruin the friendship

SO he didn’t have many ideas of what a good date could be

he definitely didn’t want a cliché corny date, but he really didn’t have any idea of what was good enough for a date

(and if for future dates you want something he’d consider a “”cliché corny date”” he’d do it for you and actually enjoy it)

the last thing he wanted was to have to ask you what you could do for your date

1- because he didn’t want to show you any side of him that didn’t look like he always has everything under control and he’s always composed (as if you wouldn’t want to see every side of him, even his most vulnerable sides- you’d have to work on that with him when you two become official)

2- he… kind of wanted to surprise you…..

but it really got to the point where he really didn’t know what you’d like the most (or what he’d like the most too) and what he wanted most over anything else is to not disappoint you in you two’s first date

SO he finally texted you asking if there was anything special you wanted to do (and therefore indirectly admitting he……….. just really wanted to ask you out. so much he did it without thinking of what he’d do if you said yes--)

you didn’t seem to mind, and in fact you were happy he asked for your opinion 

overall, scaramouche was very independent so he wasn’t one to ask others for advice, opinions or anything, much less for help regarding anything

“how long has it been since we last went to the arcade? we could go there! i heard from childe that they added new games!”

and he’s like !?!?!?? THAT…. is…….. the perfect idea

“that actually sounds perfect” he admitted, and the message brought a big smile to your face 

“just don’t get mad at me when you lose at all of them” he sent right after, teasing you, and you couldn’t help but let out a laugh out loud

“the last time i won in your favorite game” you reminded him, and even after he read your message, he took a little bit to reply

(he needed a second to put the pieces of his pride together SJNFKJDS)

“don’t get used to it, it won’t happen again”

“we will see about that” the more you two joked like this, the more excited you got thinking about tomorrow

scaramouche was sure now that it’d be a great first date that you’d both remember forever

the next day, it was almost the time for the date and scaramouche was going to pick you up at your house

i feel like scaramouche would be very fashionable and even in his style he doesn’t try to hide that he’s loaded…

not that he cares about buying cheap clothes, literally he’d say if he likes it and it’s good (aka it’s not cheap because it’s made of something that won’t make it last longer than 3 weeks) he’ll get it

but it just so happens that many times… the clothes he likes most are from famous brands…

AND THIS DAY!!!!!! he’s putting together one of his favorite outfits because it’s a special day

it almost hurts me just how nonchalant he’d look on the outside, making it a little hard to know exactly just how much this date meant to him (because as i said he’s not one to be very vocal about his feelings or even his thoughts)

BUT i trust that you… since you know him well…. can see past all that and you know that this is not just anything casual to him. this is special.

STILL!!!! he’d try his best to not let the blush rise to his cheeks and show, as well as to not let his voice shake when he complimented that you looked very good

ANYWAYS i think i think Scaramouche wouldn’t be one for big pda

the most he’d do where anyone can see is hold your hand or put his arm around your waist

WHICH IS WHY he’d try to be all smooth (and he would manage) reaching for your hand and lacing his fingers with yours

he wouldn’t make eye contact because then he’s sure it’ll show on his face that he’s getting somewhat flustered, but he’d still ask if you’re okay with it, to which you said yes

the area where the arcade was is always somewhat crowded so when you two were getting there, scaramouche would tighten the grip on your hand a little bit to make sure you wouldn’t let go and you’d be pulled apart by people trying to walk past however they can

you know that if you two got serious about your relationship, he would want to be the first person to share the news with his fans

BUT since he was so popular now, you two lived in a pretty big city and now were at a popular area (+ scaramouche wouldn’t be the type to try and hide his identity because he’s never had people make a fuss when they recognise him)

you were a little worried someone would see you two and maybe take a picture and post it online and it’d go viral before he can admit it himself

because of that, you end up throwing back to him the question he had asked when he held your hand 

“are you sure this is okay?”

your question confused him because he didn’t know what you mean, so he finally looked you in the eyes and waited for you to explain further

“it’s just- what if somebody sees us and recognises you?”

he looked away from you and back at where he was going, taking a few seconds to answer before he just shrugged

“i don’t care”

you softly let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding as you waited for him to say something, and almost missed the way he whispered

“as long as it doesn’t affect you”

for someone who seemed and actually tried to seem to self-sufficient, who appreciated his friends but was also okay on his own because he was absolutely comfortable with himself, he was actually…

more selfless than people would ever know, especially when it came to you

you two would have SO much fun in the arcade, trying every single game many times

this time though, scaramouche won in his favorite game so he lived up to his words

you two won so many tickets you literally didn’t even know what to do with them once you got the couple prizes you were interested in

you bumped into a couple fans of his, so you talked for a while

once again, you were met with suggestions of opening your own streaming channel, and even scaramouche said “i’ve told them that many times too, but they always say they think their streams won’t be fun enough”

and the fans are like “NO!! literally everyone thinks you’re super nice and fun!! of course you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but we’d love it!!”

one of the fans (exaggerating a little as a joke) said “i’ll be your number 1 fan i swear” and the three of you laughed, except scaramouche who just scoffed and smirked 

“i am ALREADY their number one fan. but good try” <- scaramouche in his head. say it outloud u coward.

but at the same time it was a joke scaramouche chill pretty much everyone knows you’re their number one fan……. even though you think you’re so smooth………. they just don’t say anything 

they were very nice and fun to talk to and you knew scaramouche and you didn’t really want anything else from the prizes, so you offered you two’s tickets to them

“we don’t really need these anymore so maybe you’ll have more use for them!!”

they got SO excited, the way their eyes lit up :( scaramouche is convinced you’re an angel but he’s also very happy to see how joyful his fans got because those were more than enough for the prize they really wanted-

so after that cute little interaction and having used up your energy for competition, you two leave and think of buying some ice cream or a milkshake or something to end the date nicely and to enjoy while you walk back home

the arcade was not exactly very close to where you two lived (it was far from your house, but even farther from his-) so he asked if you were okay with walking back or if you two should get an uber or something, to which you said you were okay

walking back with him meant!! a little more time you could spend with him

and he was happy you said that because he was feeling the same way and still didn’t want the day to end

we’ll see more about the kind of things he likes and dislikes if he’s released as a playing character BUT FOR NOW i really get this vibe that he’d LOVE boba tea

i even think he’d?? enjoy tea in general??? classy boy…

SO you two would end up going to get some boba 

it was very touching how, when reading the flavors they had that day, he suddenly and casually went “oh, they have your favorite” and you looked at the one he was pointing at and !!! indeed it was your favorite!!!!!!!

he remembers this kind of details very well

you take the chance to talk some more as you’re walking home

scaramouche asks about your job with voice acting and you tell him that you actually have been recording some new lines for your genshin character lately because in the next update there’ll be an event involving them

he’s looking forward to it but he teases you a little asking if it’s okay for you to spoil him with such information

but it’s okay because it’s not like he’d tell anyone, especially knowing it could get you in trouble

when he drops you off at your house, he has a hard time saying goodbye

literally you’re standing at your door and he’s in front of you, a couple steps away, looking away from you

you don’t say goodbye either, mainly because you know scaramouche is working the courage to say something, and you can also sort of guess what he wants to say

you think of saying it first, but then think that it would make scaramouche proud to be honest about his feelings and confess first

“i’ve liked you for a long time”

you can’t help the smile that makes its way onto your face, unconsciously reaching a hand up to slightly cover it

“i feel the same way” you replied to him in a soft voice

he took a deep breath and exhaled it softly, finally lifting up his gaze and making eye contact with you

it was already dark outside, so you couldn’t appreciate the faint rosy blush on his cheeks well

“can i kiss you?”

your eyes widened for a second, not expecting him to ask and if anything, thinking he’d just step forward and do it

so you were a little embarrassed and caught off-guard to reply properly, so you just nodded and put your hand down as he took the last couple steps and his face was right in front of yours

he’d cup your cheek in one of his hands, feeling the warmth of your skin

you closed your eyes, and he looked at you for a second longer before he finally leaned in and closed the short distance that separated your lips

at that moment you both knew that you had been missing on so much more when you two just settled and were content with your friendship

but!! that was about to change now, so it was all worth it

after that, scaramouche would make clear that this would be the first day of your relationship!! and even if he didn’t say it with words, you could just feel his happiness!!

so!! after that, because of work you two got a little busy the next couple months so dates weren’t very frequent 

or at least, they weren’t dates like the one you first had

but still whenever you two were free he’d go over to your house, or you’d come over to his to play, stream together, or literally just spend time together doing anything

he wouldn’t let people know you two had started dating straight away (if anything, only his other streamer friends -aka you two’s friends in common- knew)

but the day he said it, he wanted you to be there

SO one day you two were streaming and you were currently reacting to one fanart of you two together

so he looked at you and you made eye contact and it was like you two spoke with your eyes like

“do we tell them now”

“let’s tell them.”

so scaramouche would clear his throat and without closing the fanart, he’d say he has something he wanted to announce

everyone was excited thinking it’d be some new project, maybe involving you

maybe some merch??? and the fanarts had reminded him of it???????

BUT THEN he straightforwardly said

“y/n and i are dating”

and everyone goes aBSOLUTELY CRAZY

amidst the chaos, you two catch a comment saying “will you unban the people who shipped you two” and you laugh

and you look at each other like “did you read that one?” “yeah”

and scaramouche is like “yeah, i guess i will have to unban some people”

and when some get unbanned they’re like “fREEDOM!!!!”

and jokingly they’re all like “APOLOGISE!!!!!!!! SAY SORRY!!!” so he just laughs and you join them being like “!!! apologise!!! you banned them for it and!! look at you now!!”

so he ends up trying to hold in another laugh as he mutters a halfassed ‘sorry’ and everyone starts commenting claps and hearts and celebrating that he apologised. now justice has been made.

the rest of that stream suddenly feels livelier and brighter!! you two are laughing a lot and so is everyone in the chat!! 

and also the new genshin event would’ve already just been released that same day so you can talk about some of your experiences with recording or what you thought of it

and scaramouche would let you play it yourself!! (he still hadn’t played it) and it was also the first time you played genshin live!! you’d show people the characters you have and everything and tell them some anecdotes

people would be SHOCKED because you!? don’t have the character you voiced!? D:

and you’re like “yeah… i pulled for them and used up all my primogems and… didn’t get them”

and your banner is back because of the event, so scaramouche won’t let this slide!!!!!!!!!! YOU WILL GET YOUR CHARACTER.

your luck is terrible compared to his so at one point you’ll literally feel bad for how much he’s spending for you to get it

but he doesn’t mind at all and everyone is having fun so!!

and once you finally get them you’re sO HAPPY and everyone in the chat is celebrating

and you think it’s over but scaramouche is like ???? what are you doing?? open the wish page again. you’re going to get them c6.

and you’re like oh my gOD PLEASE NO DON’T SPEND MORE MONEY ON ME FOR THIS

but he won’t listen and he’ll do it

so!!! he’ll always do his best to be the best boyfriend he can be for you!! so you better give him your heart!!!!

#genshin #genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #scaramouche #scaramouche x reader #genshin impact scenarios #genshin impact imagines #genshim impact headcanons #genshin impact fluff #genshin impact scaramouche #scaramouche scenarios #scaramouche headcanons

[itsclydebitches]

You know, someone mentioned that RWBY would have worked much better as a video game and honestly... I can see it. Large cast of characters, a main character without much depth, and a simple motivation, that is pretty much there for the sake of the players. A lot of possible side missions, a very simple main mission that forces the player to interact with the rest of the world/characters (and is also isolated by geography). Not to mention how fun it'd probably be with the weapons/powers/classes.

Omg, anon, I’ve thought about this a lot and I wholeheartedly agree. Some random ideas I’ve had on this very topic:

As you say, there’s very large cast of potential, playable characters. Maybe you have to complete the campaign with Team RWBY first and then that unlocks new options like Team JNPR, the Ozluminati, etc.

Maybe a Genshin Impact-esque system where you can switch between members of your team, prioritizing certain characters depending on the situation.

Various endings to unlock depending on how you go about things. If you just mainline the campaign then yeah, you’ll beat Salem, but take the time to explore the world, learn the lore, and you’ll figure out that the Gods were behind her creation to begin with. Oh look, now you get to fight them too. (Yes, I’m still playing around with Hollow Knight.)

Some player choice so that no fan has to just accept RT’s narrow view of a situation. Don’t like Ozpin? Kick him out of your party. Want to take a peaceful approach to dealing with the White Fang? That’s an option. Want to RP as Blake and date Yang? Lots of romance options are available! Obviously, this wouldn’t stop fandom discourse about the ‘correct’ way to go about things (nothing will), but it would allow every fan to have their own, personalized version of the RWBY world.

Lots of achievements that equalize the choices and encourage fans to re-play for different outcomes. Savior: Successfully save the Kingdom of Atlas. vs. Destroyer: Drop the Kingdom of Atlas.

A MacGuffin hunt for Relics becomes a lot more interesting when you’re the one traversing the world trying to reach them.

Lots and lots and LOTS of side huntsmen contracts to fulfill, allowing you to level up, collect resources, explore the world, and generally take a break from the main, ‘save the world’ story-line. Threats don’t have the same urgency in video games as they do in TV, so characters doing side quests, or just hanging out, doesn’t feel like a moral failing in the way the whole mansion situation does. I mean, at this point it’s a cultural joke that most gamers will do everything but the main story.

Maybe throw in an online mode so that friends can all do huntsmen contracts together. Lots of Rubys running around, helping out random townsfolk.

PvP too. All your Character vs. Character dreams can come true.

RT could just keep designing cool outfits for players to unlock (no micro-transactions please…). Want to play as Jaune in his armor? Done. Want to play in his bunny sweatshirt? Done. His dress from the dance? You got it.

Abilities no longer need to make sense in terms of characterization, or timing. Why is Ren’s semblance suddenly different? Because he gained enough ex to unlock the next level, that’s why.

Actually, semblances would need to be re-worked to a certain extent. You want them all to be battle-useful in some manner. In the story-world being able to hid from grimm is definitely a good thing, but that’s not a particularly fun mechanic.

We eliminate the issue of power scaling all together. Why did such-and-such win this fight? Because they’re a higher level and the player is more skilled, next question.

Getting to play around with various types of combat: your weapon, semblance, dust, cool combos with your party members, etc. Are you a player who learns the whole system and figures out precisely the best strategy for success, or are you gonna run in screaming with your hammer and pound the grimm to death? Either option (mostly) works.

Characters can remain pretty static throughout the whole game. We don’t need Ruby to go through a major character arc. She’s just here to hack-and-slash her way through bad guys.

Characterization overall comes about primarily through short interactions and generated responses to various situations. There’s no worries about Ruby’s leadership because it’s you, the player, deciding how this all goes down. There's no big Ace Ops drama because they're just the NPCs helping you through this section of the game.

Death sequence where there’s gold dust, maybe the island, all of it hinting at the ‘true’ ending involving the Gods.

Maybe characters like Pyrrha are still killed off in cut scenes, to give the story some weight, but she’s still available for all the post-campaign stuff.

Like, there could maybe be raids too. Want to finally let Pyrrha kill/trap/un-grimm/whatever Salem? Grab a bunch of buds and take her to Salem’s dungeon.

Big world map that’s slowly unlocked as the group goes on their Relic quest. Do all these environments make sense? Nah. Do they need to? Nah.

Tweaking the plot a bit could lead to some great introductions. You're traversing a new area when a boss fight with Tyrian suddenly starts. It's deliberately scaled so that you can't win. Right as your HP gets low enough Qrow arrives with that badass block, turning the tide. Congrats, you've got a new party member. +3 strength to Ruby because she loves her uncle!

Little details that maintain the vibe of early RWBY, even as the story gets a bit darker. Like, health food. Ruby loves cookies. Nora pancakes. Blake fish. Other characters can eat these things too, but it won’t provide as much of a boost.

Cool insta-kill combos that have a chance to run and inevitably someone creates a mod that increases the percentage like whoa because the animations are that much fun to watch.

Okay, I’ll stop here, but yeah as someone who both loves games and critiques RWBY, I think about this a lot.

#rwby #rwde #gaming

[outivv]

hi, good day to you :] if i may – diluc, kaeya, childe and zhongli separately with reader who's dramatic . reader is the type of person who is quiet and shy but when they're comfortable with you they started to show their true persona. so when the boys are in relationship with reader, they honestly didn't expect them to have a dramatic side

reader : *tastes an unexpectedly sour food*

dckz : is it good ?

reader : tastes like it wants me dead, but im not complaining

dckz : *is about to treat reader's wound*

reader : *is getting ready to be expressive*

dckz : *starts treating the wound*

reader : AHHSJSNSK– oh? oh wait. oh, it doesn't hurt

roaches : hello !

reader : AYO DONT COME CLOSE, STAY AWAY

roaches : *flips the wings*

reader : TAKE ONE MORE STEP AND I'LL CURSE YOU AND YOUR SEVEN GENERATIONS

dckz : 👁👁

reader : *takes a broom and the bug spray* step back, dckz

dckz : ?

reader : im in a battlefield 🤺

dckz : 🧍‍♂️

Synopsis: dramatic s/o, who’s shy when you first meet them!

Warnings: not proofread!

Game/ fandom: genshin impact

Characters: Diluc, childe, kaeya, and zhongli

Pronouns for reader: gender neutral/ not mentioned

A/n: lmao dckz (yes I have the humor of a third grader) *cough* any way, I definitely took a more… lighthearted, and causal tone than my usual stuff. Hope none of you mind, but I wanted to try a different tone than usual, cause that’s just the mood I’m in :D

— Diluc —

Diluc at first thought that you were much like him. Just shy, and fairly reserved, and you know what he respected that. (Respectful guy, and we appreciate that.)

You started showing your… dramatic side, slowly but surely, and Diluc definitely caught on, but truly just paid no mind. Maybe you were just getting more and more comfortable with him…?

Literally bumping your knee, and collapsing dramatically, will make him worry about you. He’s always quick to rush to your side and make sure you’re ok.

If you wanna make him have a heart attack though, then just… collapse dramatically when he’s half asleep. Like you ran out of coffee that morning or something, and you pretend to pass out dramatically. You’ve never seen dilucs eyes go as wide until then.

— childe —

He does that too, except he’s always dramatic. He never hid his dramatic side from the start, and as a result I feel that anyone who’s more… dramatic at nature, would instantly… almost mimic his demeanor, or be more comfortable to be themself around him. (Childe doesn’t judge either. Dude has no right to he almost wiped out a nation, why would he judge???)

You cut your finger once, and put the back of your hand on your forehead, and whined for him to kiss it to make it feel better. He happily obliged.

People will see you out in public, and will instantly just be like “dang calm down?” But literally neither of you care, you’re both too busy pretending to fight each other with wooden swords, and then when childe grazes your arm with the sword, you pretend to play dead.

Probably convinces you to play with the local kids in liyue, or even is siblings. Both of you being “dramatic” mixes well with the children’s insanely active imaginations.

— kaeya —

Oh yeah him too. Literally kaeya is dramatic as well, but in… an elegant way(???). Like the kind of dramatic that you’d see on a stage play. So basically… he’s extra as hell.

Definitely encourages you to just… be yourself basically. He understands you’re very shy at first, but he’ll basically be like “but… why? Like be dramatic. It’s funny, and then we can be that cool dramatic pair.” (He wouldn’t say that, but you get the point.)

Always makes fun of you because you’re screaming over a bug, calling it a “spawn of Satan”

— zhongli —

Zhongli is the partner that definitely is like “you go babe!” While just sitting on the sidelines. You’re literally trying to fence a scarecrow, and he’s just like “yeah you get ‘em!”

He may think you’re slightly childish, but never thinks less of you because of it. Though he looks like a old man (to be fair he’s like 6,000 years old…), just sipping his tea, as you make a face like a dissatisfied child at your peas.

Loves that you’re more dramatic, and he completely understands why you were shy at first, and never pushed you in any way.

Whenever you’re especially being dramatic, he’ll just look at you like “is that right?” And walk away with a smile on his face. (“Humans are so funny.” - zhongli probably)

#genshin impact #genshin headcanons #genshin x reader #genshin fluff #genshin x gender neutral reader #genshin imagines #genvsin diluc #genshin childe #genshin kaeya #genshin zhongli #Diluc #childe #kaeya #zhongli #diluc x reader #childe x reader #kaeya x reader #zhongli x reader #diluc fluff #childe fluff #kaeya fluff #zhongli fluff #diluc headcanons #childe headcanons #kaeya headcanons #zhongli headcanons #diluc x you #childe x you #kaeya x you #zhongli x you

[renegadewangs]

Van Zieks - the Examination, part 11

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: (see Part 1 for the more detailed disclaimer.) - These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I’m outlining stems from my own views and experiences. If you believe that I’ve missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly. -The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. - I’m using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what’s said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent. -It doesn’t matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

Bring on the game's credits! BRING IT! The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo part 2 is here!

Episode 2-5: The Resolve of Ryunosuke Naruhodo, part 2

This is the first time in a while that I actually want to try other options to see what happens. The 'accusation' leads to some witty banter with a frustrated Stronghart, but 'report' is one that gets a reaction from Van Zieks himself. Ryu theorizes that 'since Klint was a well-bred and fastidious man, and knowing the end was near, he might have wanted to tie up some loose ends in all of his outstanding business'. Van Zieks immediately replies that his brother had no outstanding business.

DID I JUST GET PENALIZED BY THE DEFENDANT??? Just for implying his brother might've had some loose ends to tie up? Van Zieks really hates it when people show his brother even the slightest bit of disrespect, huh? Well, it's about to get a whole lot worse. Let's go for the confession option! Van Zieks definitely doesn't take kindly to this one.

“What are you saying? Do you even realise?! A confession...about the true identity of the Professor... That, that would mean...”

He fumbled his speech, there. We've never heard him do that before. And he's gone back to that bobbing, unsteady animation halfway into the above dialogue. Ryu insists it's the only explanation that fits. The man who murdered those members of the aristocracy wasn't Genshin Asogi at all, it was the one believed to be the fifth victim, Klint van Zieks himself.

Welp. We broke him. Stronghart remarks that Pandora's box has opened at last, making it clear he already knew what we just revealed. The gallery is outraged.

We've gone from well-bred to thoroughbred, have we? Susato feels very bad for Van Zieks, but Ryu asks himself whether such a brilliant prosecutor never suspected “what his older brother really was”. To clear up doubt further, he asks whether Klint Van Zieks owned a dog. Barok doesn't intend to dodge the facts of the situation, it seems.

Not what the concept art says, but it's possible Klint owned a different, smaller dog before Balmung. Van Zieks talks about how loyal the dog was and how it wore a jewel-studded collar which was stolen from the house “some years ago now”. This implies it was less than ten years ago, and must've been kept in the house as a keepsake even after Balmung passed away. Ryu and Susato bring up that they've seen such a collar; it was Selden's loot in case 2-2. They note the fancy B emblem on it, and this is the first time we find out that Klint van Zieks was a married man. His widow's maiden name was Baskerville. It's a little odd to me that for someone who thought so highly of his brother, Van Zieks never mentioned his sister in law before now. Conveniently, it never came up for the sake of a twist, I suppose. Either way, the emblem confirms the collar they saw was Balmung's. Ryu notes there was a considerable amount of blood on the collar (nobody washed this thing?) and while it could've come from typical hunting trips, it could just as well have been human blood. With that, the gallery begins to lean towards the truth that Klint van Zieks really was the Professor himself. Stronghart seems to have realized there's no way out of this now and announces that 'they may have the truth'.

Here comes that 'true nature' thing again, just worded a bit differently. Van Zieks doesn't intend to shirk away from it, though. He's open to the insinuation that his brother was, in truth, something truly horrible. Stronghart explains that Klint attempted to fight the growing darkness in London, only to end up being consumed by it. He also admits that after the fourth victim fell, Genshin showed up at his office, putting forth the accusation that Klint was the Professor. He didn't have any evidence and needed a warrant to get some, but Stronghart refused to anger the aristocracy based on the accusation of a visiting student, so he sent Genshin away. As a result, the man headed over to the Van Zieks mansion and Klint perished. Stronghart continues to admit that he was responsible for pinning the Professor's crimes on Genshin, right down to ordering Gregson to fabricate evidence. Sure enough, the late inspector's earlier claims ring true: it seems he did genuinely believe Genshin to be the killer, but was reluctant to falsify anything until Stronghart strong-armed him into it. The jailbreak agreement was also part of Stronghart's plan; he manipulated Genshin into agreeing by proverbially dangling his 14 year old son in front of him. Van Zieks brings up one more point: that Stronghart was the mastermind behind the Reaper organization. Not only does he admit to it, he calls it a “brilliant idea” and even takes credit for how his “minions” worked tirelessly to ensure Van Zieks was never accused of being the Reaper himself. What a smarmy bumhole. He insists it was all for the preservation of law and order across the empire, and the gallery is actually suckered into falling for this ploy. It seems as if he's going to get away with his masterminding without decent consequences. Kazuma now has one more question for Van Zieks, and it's the exact one Ryu asked himself earlier; did he never have any doubts about his brother?

“My brother's sense of justice was extremely strong. Perhaps...too strong, I observed. […] During the time of the Professor killings, my brother did not appear to be himself. But it was only once. Not more. Klint wasn't the culprit. That was my conclusion at the time. And I still believe that now. […] The third victim...was the Lord Chief Justice at the time. It was he who had recognized my brother's potential and trained him as a prosecutor. No matter what the circumstances, it's unthinkable that my brother could have killed his friend and mentor!”

So here, we learn that Klint wasn't an infallible paragon of virtue in his brother's eyes. Simply by saying that his sense of justice was “perhaps too strong”, a flaw is being brought to light. Younger Barok saw that Klint's need to ensure justice was overpowering him, and he also saw that during the time of the killings, something was off about his behavior. Enough to have the younger Van Zieks consider, for a brief time, that perhaps the Professor was him. However, the death of the third victim was like a lifeline to him, a flotation device keep him from going under- or perhaps more like a straw to grasp. It offered a sort of justification to him; a firm belief that Klint would never kill his own mentor and therefore he couldn't possibly be the Professor, and Barok was wrong to ever doubt him. However, it was just a very meager excuse to put his suspicions at ease and blind him to the truth. There are, after all, plenty of reasons why Klint would kill that Lord Chief Justice if indeed he were the Professor.

So Stronghart now tries to wrap everything up with a neat little bow, saying that's all the truth they'll be able to get from this trial and he'll present himself at the Ministry of Justice for whatever sanctions are deemed necessary. Since he's the Lord Chief Justice, I can't imagine the Ministry of Justice will give him more than a slap on the wrist. However, he says just a bit too much in his closing statement and Ryu jumps on that immediately. A third page of Genshin's will was hidden from everyone! Turns out, it was a personal message to Kazuma that they never bothered to send to Japan. Governor Caidin conveniently brought it with him and the contents are read aloud after some pressuring. With this last secret message left behind by Genshin, Ryu manages to find Klint's last will and testament hidden inside the Asogi clan's sword. GASP.

Oblivious to the shenanigans playing out in the Court Record section of the game, Stronghart once again tries to end the trial and even goes so far as to say Klint was basically insane when he took his mentor's life (to which Van Zieks objects fiercely). Ryu interjects, saying he has one more piece of evidence to present. When Stronghart calls the very notion absurd, Van Zieks once again raises an objection, pointing out that “this gentleman has an uncanny habit of producing evidence at the final hour that had escaped everyone else's attention.” Which, y'know, is true. That's how Ace Attorney works. I do want to draw attention to the fact that he said “this gentleman” as opposed to “this Nipponese” or even something like “this barrister”. He considers Ryu a gentleman now! So with that, Ryu has the opportunity to shove Klint's will in everyone's face and things escalate very quickly.

Ooh, his speech faltered again. He is shook! And it gets even better when he gets a closer look at the document.

Stronghart panics and demands Ryu hands the document over to him at once. When that fails, he even tries to forcibly adjourn the trial and get everyone to clear the courtroom. If that isn't suspicious, we don't know what is. It sure is satisfying to watch him squirm. Naturally, he can't actually put an end to the trial now- not with so many people watching, so the document is read aloud. It's revealed that Genshin challenged Klint to a duel, so that he might “depart this world with honor”. Klint goes on to write that he finds himself undeserving of this honor and that “the Japanese are a truly merciful people”. So here, already, we get the final nail in the coffin for Van Zieks's entire motivation for racial prejudice and for hating Genshin in particular. Klint never thought ill of Genshin, not even in his final moments. If anything, he was grateful for being put out of his misery and being allowed to 'depart the world with honor'. Genshin's actions were not betrayal; not ever. They were merciful. (COOL MOTIVE, STILL MURDER.) What we also learn is that while Klint did indeed take the life of the first victim on his own accord, he was then immediately identified as the culprit and blackmailed into the next three killings by someone else. You guessed it, it was Stronghart! Despite his earlier panic, he now has a myriad of justification ready, talking about how sacrifices have to be made for the sake of justice and whatnot. He also explains that he was the one who pressured Jigoku into shooting Genshin in the graveyard when Drebber showed up there. He acts like Jigoku is the only one to blame, but considering Stronghart was basically screaming in Jigoku's ear, I wouldn't be surprised if this poor man pulled the trigger by accident simply because he was startled by the shouting. Stronghart was the one who decided that Genshin needed to die and forced Jigoku to act, so Stronghart is the one ultimately responsible. Naturally, Ryu and Kazuma both attempt to argue Stronghart's justifications into the ground. At one point, Stronghart plays the victim card and asks them to acknowledge his 'struggle', but Kazuma insists that this jerk has done nothing and:

WELL. Okay. Looks like we've finally convinced Kazuma that Van Zieks is a victim in this whole ordeal, as well as someone who 'acts justly'. That's a wonderful way forward. With all this out in the open, though, Stronghart offers a literal round of applause. It's true; he's “done nothing” and “merely been surrounded by fools who've acted very rashly indeed”, which means he can't be charged with any crimes. We can't even prove he threatened anyone into doing his bidding, as he says it might as well have been “bargaining”. Thing is, bargaining with someone to end a third party's life is known as “contract killing” and is, in fact, illegal. I can't find any sources to verify whether it was already illegal in 1900 England, but I can only assume so, or people would've gotten away with murders very easily. I guess the bottom line here is that we can't prove Stronghart really did extort or pay anyone to take a life, since there's no material evidence for that sort of thing, nor anyone who can testify on it. Stronghart claims that the minutes of the trial will be heavily redacted to remove matters not related to Gregson's death, in the interest of preserving law and order, as well as to protect the queen. The gallery has now turned against us as well, chanting Stronghart's name.

Here we have a singular opportunity to deviate into the closest thing to a bad ending this game series has. Anyone who remembers the iconic 'the miracle never happen' ending in AA2, or even the bad endings in AA5 where either Trucy or Athena is implied to be killed by Aura, will be sorely disappointed by this one. First, to compare... In the standard ending, no matter how far along you've gotten in the trial- including proving that Stronghart was the Reaper- Van Zieks will still be found guilty. Stronghart will utter the words that he “would like to think however misguided, [Van Zieks] acted out of a sense of justice nonetheless”, and then pronounces the poor man guilty of crimes we've already proven were never committed by him. Now, in this slightly different ending, if you run out of all your penalty points because you fail to present Harely, the dialogue is tweaked. Stronghart declares that for the sake of justice, “the only correct course of action has been unanimously acknowledged by the clear majority here present. All mention of that which has been discussed in this courtroom today will be struck from the records. Barok van Zieks – Or should I say, Reaper of the Bailey... The heinous crimes committed by your brother, Klint van Zieks, will be lost in obscurity, this time forever. May you also find peace now as you join your sibling in the eternal darkness.”

And then, just as in the standard ending, Van Zieks is pronounced guilty and the doors slam shut. So effectively, the only real difference here is that Stronghart really rubs it in our faces that Van Zieks is taking the fall as the Reaper in the eyes of the public. He knows Van Zieks isn't the Reaper- everyone present in the courtroom knows it. However, since the entirely gallery is siding with the real mastermind, the minutes of the trial will be confiscated and destroyed so that the truth will be lost forever. Neither Kazuma nor Ryu reacts to this turn of events on-screen, which is a shame. Van Zieks doesn't fight the adjudication either, he simply accepts the verdict in silence- Hang on, where have we heard that before? Genshin? And didn't Van Zieks say that so long as his death served a purpose, he wouldn't mind dying over being called the Reaper? Stronghart certainly seems to feel that Van Zieks ought to be thrown under the omnibus and sent to the gallows for the sake of minimizing crime in London.

But we're not going to let the true antagonist of this game get away with his bullshit! Time to pull Harely's ears! Cue another (S)Holmeus Ex-Machina where it turns out the entire secret trial has been livestreamed to the Queen of England through holograms. By royal decree, Stronghart is stripped of his title and will be prosecuted for his crimes at a later time. FINAL BOSS, DEFEATED.

With Stronghart out of the way, Van Zieks has some closing sentiments to offer.

“Is that my brother left this world without a word to me.”

I can see why that might bug him. Van Zieks always looked up to his brother and shielded him from disrespect even a decade after his death, but Klint in turn didn't seem to want to leave any parting sentiments for him, not even a simple farewell. That's not the case, though! Susato points out there's actually more to Klint's will than was read aloud, so let's hear it now.

“Barok, you have always looked up to me, and now, you follow in my footsteps to become a prosecutor. It is my fervent wish that my unspeakable deeds should not hinder your advancement. I ask not for understanding, for none could understand my depravity. I ask only for forgiveness. Asogi is a fine detective, and a hunter worthy of respect. He has agreed to honour my final two wishes. The first is that this document survives. The second... I cannot commit to paper. I have confessed my sins to my wife. May she find resolution in my death. With my eternal gratitude to my Japanese friend, I rest my quill.”

Imagine how different things would've ended if the will had found its way to Van Zieks shortly after Klint's death. It would've prevented so much grief and so much prejudice, because if Van Zieks had learned that Klint still regarded Genshin with so much respect and gratitude even in this situation, he would never have blamed him for Klint's death nor considered it too great a betrayal. Everything that happened was in line with Klint's wishes. As it stands now, the words in Klint's will basically serve to scold Van Zieks for his attitude and hatred these past ten years.

Yep, there we go. The final straw. He's been truly, utterly embarrassed and made to confront his mistakes. When Stronghart explains how his ambition to become Attorney General is what prompted him to silence people like Watson and Gregson. Van Zieks asks him whether he ever bothered to count the number of brilliant people he had killed. Kind of a questionable remark, since Stronghart mostly had criminals killed. We don't even know for sure whether Watson was a good person or not; he comes across as a cowardly skeeve. I guess Van Zieks is mostly talking about Genshin, but even that is... Uh...

I received an Ask a while back, bringing up the matter that Genshin appears to be exonerated of any wrongdoing when the truth of Klint's death is revealed. That despite duels being outlawed and it being literal murder, Kazuma seems to take this truth as his father's name being cleared. Indeed, going over everything we've learned so far, it feels as if the narrative has set up both Klint and Genshin, and even characters like Jigoku and Gregson, as victims of Stronghart's manipulation. The thing is, though... Both Genshin and Klint took at least one life of their own free will, Jigoku pulled a trigger twice for the sake of his own career (and recruited someone into an assassin plot), Gregson conspired with a notorious assassin to commit over a dozen murders just because his boss told him it was the right thing to do... Feeling bad about murder or resorting to it because 'the other person is even worse and needs to be stopped' doesn't change that it's murder. It doesn't seem as if Kazuma or anyone else outright says their loved ones are absolved of any responsibility/their names are cleared, but it does really come across as if the narrative wants you to forgive them. So uh... Yes. This is something the game should have properly addressed, instead of just going 'oh, these poor people, all used as puppets by the final boss'.

Anyway, (S)Holmes takes the time to remind Van Zieks that he's the defendant in this case, not the prosecutor. Our old friend Santa Judge returns for the adjudication! Turns out, he was in the gallery all along. (Was he chanting Stronghart's name too?) He talks about how the darkness of the past ten years has lifted, in part thanks to a bright young star from the East. Awww, we've completely won over the judge! Van Zieks now also has something to add.

“I had the faintest of intimations. That if British justice, so warped and twisted over its long history, was finally to know change... This might just be the man to do it. But at the time, I wouldn't allow myself to acknowledge the possibility. I couldn't overcome my hatred of the Japanese, after the circumstances of my brother's death. Mr. Naruhodo...”

He takes a flourishing bow here, an acknowledgment that Ryu is worthy of his respect and perhaps even that Ryu is superior to him, then stands up straight again for the final whammy.

Ryu is shocked and Susato is brought to tears. We did it, y'all. We've secured the full, heartfelt apology. I'm not sure there's really anything to add to this, nor anything we could want from it at this point in time. Ryu doesn't say he forgives Van Zieks for his discourtesies, but considering how hard he worked to get this guy cleared of murder, that would feel kind of out of place. The forgiveness happened long before Van Zieks apologized, or so is the implication. (Is that the correct narrative path? Not at all, but I'll get back to that in the conclusion.) So after some more closing words from Ryu, Van Zieks gets his not-guilty verdict and court is adjourned.

In the defendant's lobby, Ryu feels a bit conflicted about how this whole thing went down. Susato tries to cheer him up by saying that everything will seem much better once he sees Van Zieks's smiling face. Indeed, in most other Ace Attorney games, this would be the point where at last, an emotionally distant defendant/witness drops their walls and allows themselves to smile (or cry). Just think of Gina, Lana Skye or even Athena Cykes when she cries tears of joy during AA5's ending. Hilariously enough, Van Zieks is not one of those characters.

This is a really fun subversion of expectations and Ace Attorney tropes. And I still believe his face got frozen like that. Even so, he's got something heartfelt to say.

“For you to have risen to the level of excellence you demonstrated today... Well, it's quite remarkable.”

Sounds like a hatchet job of a compliment at first glance, but the sentiment is there. It is extremely remarkable for a foreign exchange student who's only been in the country for about 9 months- and who only spent like 2 of those as an active lawyer- to rise to such a level that he not only uncovers the truth of the current case, but of a cold case from 10 years prior, which was part of a huge cover-up. Ryu points out that he exposed a most 'unpalatable truth' in court and that he feels as if he robbed Van Zieks of something precious. Van Zieks doesn't seem to agree. He reminisces on Stronghart's words.

“But that... That was just the feeble excuse of a coward. Only those with a steadfast eye for the truth have what it takes to fight the dark forces of crime. You made fine work of establishing that fact in court today.”

So once again, he's complimenting Ryu's courtroom performance. Not only that, but he's acknowledging (in different words) the earlier sentiment that the truth needs to come out, no matter how painful. Perhaps, indirectly, he's calling himself a feeble coward as well. Ryu and Susato are proud of Van Zieks's growth, with Susato saying that surely Kazuma would be smiling if he were here. Naturally, when he shows up at that very second, he isn't smiling at all. Like mentor, like disciple! Kazuma takes a polite bow before Van Zieks and congratulates him on his acquittal. Naturally, after watching Kazuma prosecute so ferociously for two whole episodes, that doesn't feel sincere. Van Zieks asks him whether he doesn't instead want to curse him. Kazuma apologizes for his earlier behavior, which does feel 100% sincere.

“Your father, Genshin... If I had been stronger, then perhaps... I made an unforgivable error of judgment. … I can offer no excuse.”

One more apology to add to the pile! And here we once again reach that question of whether the narrative is acting like Genshin should be absolved of all blame. In a technical sense, Van Zieks wasn't wrong to prosecute Genshin, since he did seriously murder Klint. That alone is already warranting of the death penalty, so the added crimes of the Professor on top of that don't change too much. However, I don't think Van Zieks's lines truly relate to the Professor trial itself. The error of judgment, in my eyes, can also be seen as the blind acceptance that Genshin betrayed him (as well as Klint) when there was actually far more at play. This notion that Genshin was a horrid traitor who abused their trust and hospitality was then allowed to grow into an irrational hatred which festered for a decade. Regardless of whether Genshin killed Klint, the insistence that the man's true nature was that of a monster was wrong, and I think that's what he's apologizing for. To be clear, he's not apologizing for racist sentiments uttered towards Kazuma or anyone else from Japan with these lines. This purely relates to his treatment of Genshin. However, he already apologized for his many discourtesies back in the courtroom and I think the racist outbursts were part of those discourtesies.

Kazuma says he can offer no forgiveness, which is totally fair. Kazuma isn't obligated to forgive this man. He does, however, admit that he has respect for Van Zieks, since he “fought for justice and the truth”.

Awww! Remember how in my very first 'strong thought about Barok' post, I pointed out that Barok almost appears to have been designed to be Kazuma's rival prosecutor instead of Ryu's? Yeah. Here we see it very clearly. The reconciliation conversation between these two feels like a much better resolution than the conversation between Van Zieks and Ryu.

So now Kazuma brings up that Genshin promised to do two things for Klint, but the second wasn't mentioned in the will. Mikotoba shows up to share a very heartbreaking tale about Klint's unnamed widow, the lady Zieks-Baskerville, who was hiding out in Dartmoor and passed away from childbirth very shortly after Genshin was executed. The newborn baby girl survived, though! Van Zieks blurts out that that makes no sense. “Why on Earth wouldn't Klint have entrusted the child to my care in that case?!” And that alone is already kind of tragic, but what really packs a wallop is this:

This means Klint and his wife deliberately kept the pregnancy from him. It's never explained why. Genshin showed up at the manor in the spur of the moment and Klint died that very same night, when his wife must've already been around 8 or 9 months pregnant. (she gives birth about a week or two later, after all.) Klint says that he 'confessed his sins to his wife', but that also must've been very recent, if not that very same night, since Stronghart was threatening to tell Klint's wife and brother of his misdeeds. Stronghart's hold on Klint would've weakened if he'd told her the truth months ago, which in turn implies the both of them decided not to tell Barok while she herself was still oblivious to the Professor truth. Honestly, it all feels like a vague plotconvenience.

What is explained is why the newborn baby wasn't entrusted to Van Zieks. It isn't because Klint had the amazing foresight to know his younger brother would become a salty, loner alcoholic; it's because he and his wife feared the truth of the Professor might come out. Heck, if Genshin had never been arrested for Klint's death, perhaps it would've come out for certain. “The girl would be forever branded as the daughter of the infamous mass murderer.” So the baby girl was distanced from the Van Zieks family as much as possible, with all of London unaware of her existence. This girl is, of course, Iris.

Right on cue, the Harely plushie activates to receive a call from (S)Holmes and Iris. She invites everyone over to 221B for a feast and makes sure to invite “Mr. Reaper” too. He very awkwardly declines the offer.

Humanization? Humanization! He does, however, give Iris his word that he'll present himself at 221B in the near future to express his gratitude. I think a big part of why he declined the offer was because he wouldn't feel at home during the big celebration when a whole group of people is there. He'd much rather visit Iris during a more quiet, private moment and that's sweet too. Plus, I don't think he's in the mood for a celebration, considering all the horrible truths he's learned in a single day.

So now Kazuma prepares to leave and asks Van Zieks to accompany him. The wording of “would you care to-” makes it very clear this isn't a demand, it's a very soft request that Van Zieks is free to decline. Not that he hesitates for even a second. Here's some more parting words.

“I believe... You saved my life.”

He takes a deep, flourishing bow and honestly I've lost track of how many times he's praised/thanked Ryu by now. More than Edgeworth thanked Phoenix, most likely. The prosecutor duo prepares to walk away, but Ryu calls after Van Zieks, asking him to wait. Which he does. Ryu asks him what he intends to do now.

... “Prosecutor van Zieks chooses death”??? In a way, he's thinking of pulling a similar move. He intends to publicize the full truth of the Professor, and I can only imagine that includes Stronghart's involvement in what went down 10 years ago. Maybe he'll even share the truth of the Reaper who's haunted the courtroom all these years. He believes that “once that's done, the Van Zieks family will be ostracised completely from London society.” (I don't think he means living family members, but rather, the legacy of the Van Zieks name and the rights associated with it.) So because of that, he intends to leave the capital as soon as he's free of his employment. Considering how easily this man took a five year sabbatical and adding in the fact that the Lord Chief Justice just got arrested, I expect his resignation could be as easy as packing his desk and leaving his office without saying a word. Kazuma, however, calls him a fool and a coward. He basically dares Van Zieks to keep going now that he's finally freed from the pseudonym of the Reaper. Van Zieks neither agrees with the sentiment nor shoots it down, instead saying it's unexpected to hear those words from Kazuma of all people. With that out in the open, they leave for realsies.

Just as Van Zieks doesn't attend the Baker Street party, he isn't there when Ryu's at the docks to return to Japan. I like to think Kazuma did bother to tell Van Zieks that Ryu is leaving the country, because withholding that information seems like a bit of a jerk move, but... Well. Not showing up at the docks to say some final farewells is even more of a jerk move on Van Zieks's part. Though it's possible he felt he wasn't wanted there, and may eventually ask for Ryu's address so he can write a letter (which is far less imposing than invading a heartfelt farewell with a scowling face). It's a shame, though. I would've liked to hear his thoughts on Ryu's departure.

We learn that Kazuma will “stay in Lord van Zieks's tutelage for the time being” to become a full-fledged prosecutor. Which is fine, I guess. It doesn't matter whether he's a defense attorney or a prosecutor; all that matters is the pursuit of the truth. What catches my interest is that even with all that bad blood and refusal to forgive Van Zieks, Kazuma still agrees to keep studying as his disciple. This implies to me that he sincerely doesn't believe Van Zieks to be a bad person anymore, and acknowledges he can learn a lot from this man. Which is not the same thing as being on friendly terms with him, but at the very least he's giving Van Zieks the benefit of the doubt when it comes to improving their... Well, their dynamic, I suppose I should call it.

On to the credits scenes we go! This time, Van Zieks legit does get a scene of his own, but before we address this one, I want to skip ahead real quick to Albert Harebrayne's scene.

“He sent me a very nice letter saying he'd like to show me around now that everything was settled. B-But what have I done? I was so excited, I picked this splendid hotel and now I can't afford the bill! Oh Barok! Come to my rescue again, please! I, I wish I could just vanish into thin air sometimes!”

Several things of note can be taken out of this little scene. First of all, with the Reaper nonsense behind them, Van Zieks seems to have wasted very little time with asking his best buddy to return to London for that sightseeing that was promised. Presumably, he even paid for the trip (again), since Albert still seems to be very low on money. This, coupled with the fact that Van Zieks was reading that letter with quite a bit of dedication in his jail cell, indicates to me that he's longing for the good old days, when he could smile and have friends. He's trying to return to a sense of normalcy and since Albert is still considered his closest friend, it makes sense he'd reach out to him instead of a relative stranger like Kazuma. Baby steps. Now, the fact that Albert says “come to my rescue again” sets the very clear tone that this guy believes Van Zieks has helped him before- during the trial, of course. It's another reinforcement of the notion that Albert is thankful Van Zieks chose the role of prosecutor in order to defend the teleportation theory, even if it meant that he himself would be branded a murderer. Despite his gruff exterior and blunt words, Albert thinks of Van Zieks as a sort of knight in shining armor who will come save him. … With cold hard cash, in this case, but it's the gesture that counts. Van Zieks might allow Albert to stay in his mansion instead, but it depends how high the risk of assassination is at this point in time. People are probably hating on the Van Zieks family now that the truth of the Professor is out.

On to credits scene of Van Zieks himself! We have confirmation by now that he hasn't retired as a prosecutor, since Kazuma already expressed his intent to keep studying under him. So we see Van Zieks in his office, addressing Klint's painting.

“In those days, when I was known as the Reaper, I felt your presence at my side. Once, unable to bear the burden of that grim pseudonym, I even retired from the courtroom. Despite everything, I still wear your prosecutor's badge with pride. But the darkness that beset me is no more. As you, too... Are no more.”

The first two sentences of this bit feel very disjointed and barely related to me, so I had a quick look at some fan translations. First is the sub translation on Youtube: “I could feel you standing by my side through the days in which I was called the Reaper. Yet there were times I could not bear the burden of that name, and left the courtroom far behind me.” The “yet” is very crucial, since it makes the insinuation that feeling his brother's presence was very important to Van Zieks, but the burden became so overwhelming that he retired anyway. Taisa the Gamer's script doesn't have a “yet” in it, nor any equivalent, but the sentence structure still flows well enough not to cast doubt on how he felt about Klint's supposed presence. Contrasting that, the localization's wording with “even” almost makes it seem like feeling Klint's presence was a negative thing- that he was overwhelmed by it and that this was the burden associated with the Reaper name, as opposed to the killings. Which can't possibly be right; he already admitted to us that the idea of his brother's ghost helping him was one of the main reasons he kept on being the Reaper. So long story short, the localization's take on these first two lines is a little off.

The prosecutor's badge thing, however, is spot on. Despite everything- despite the 'true nature' of Klint now exposed, Van Zieks still wears the badge with pride. We know the badge is symbolical, of course. He still believes in Klint's sense of justice and he's still going to openly admit to being Klint's brother- to being a Van Zieks. That's sweet. He goes on to say that the darkness within him is no more. To really grasp what that means, let's go back to the end of case 2-3 for a second. There, Van Zieks says that after his brother's death, he found himself in “a very dark place indeed”. In case 2-4, he mentions that he refuses to trust others to protect himself against betrayal, but has now sunk into a proverbial mire which makes it impossible to breathe. All of that is the same darkness he's referring to now, I'm sure. I don't believe depression can lift this easily; there's no way that darkness is no more. However, I think what he means to say is that it no longer has such a strong hold on him that it manifests in paranoia and irrational hatred. He has a chance now to start fresh and that's what he intends to do. He's striding away from that darkness, towards a brighter future. In order for a person to change for the better, they themselves have to want to change, and it looks like Van Zieks is all for that. Which at last brings us to the conclusion of this essay series! The conclusion, which looks back on the original query posed in Part 1, will once again include a load of screencaps. To keep the post size lighter, I'm going to put it in a separate post. I hope you'll look forward to it!

#dgs #dgs spoilers #tgaa #tgaa spoilers #barok van zieks #ALMOST THERE #HHHHHHHHH

[rapifessor]

Thoughts on 2.7 Special Program

I’m definitely late to the party at this point but I wanted to make a post about this topic so fuck it. Let’s talk about the Genshin Impact Version 2.7 Special Program. I would have posted about it earlier but unfortunately the Genshin Impact YouTube channel was ERROR, so I wasn’t able to watch it before I had to go to work today.

Obviously the centerpiece to the whole thing is Yelan and Shinobu. At least, that’s the part that I cared about the most and paid the most attention to. The rest I didn’t give much of a shit about but some of the system changes are kind of interesting. We’ll get to those in a bit.

I am immediately a fan of Yelan’s Elemental Skill. It could do crap damage and I’d still love it because of the SPEED, man. I just have a thing for high mobility in video games, and it kinda makes me wonder if you couldn’t abuse the ability for non-combat purposes. If it’s affected by movement speed bonuses the same way Sayu’s Skill is, then hell yeah.

The Elemental Burst I sort of already knew about, basically it deals damage and then it functions similarly to a Xingqiu Burst. Meaning Yelan will probably be a great replacement for or second copy of Xingqiu. I’d be shocked if she didn’t deal similar or greater damage than him, considering she’s a 5-star character. That’d be a pretty big miss on HoYoverse’s part.

Her passive talent that gives the active character gradually increasing damage during her Burst’s duration seems really good, but she also has a weird one that increases her Max HP for each different element you have in the party. I like that HoYoverse is exploring this design space and trying to encourage elementally diverse parties, but why HP? I didn’t hear the Special Program commentators mention that she had HP scaling so that just seems like a total waste of a Passive Talent on a character we are told is meant to be a DPS. I dunno, maybe she does have HP scaling and they just didn’t mention it. One can hope.

Now onto Shinobu. I found the description of her kit to be very basic, unfortunately. Conceptually she’s very interesting. An Electro healer that sacrifices her own HP to heal her allies is a really cool concept. It kind of reminds me of the color philosophy of Black in Magic: the Gathering, in that it’s a color that can do almost anything that the other colors can, but it usually has to pay life or sacrifice creatures to do so. The analogue in Genshin now is that Electro isn’t a “healer” element, but now it can be. It just needs to sacrifice HP to do so.

But at the end of the day she’s just another healer that also deals some damage and can maybe support Electro-based reactions. I’m kind of expecting her healing and/or damage output to be mediocre at best since she’s a 4-star character and I think HoYoverse never wants there to be another Bennett/Xingqiu/Xiangling (aka insanely broken 4-star characters). I won’t lie, I was kind of hoping she’d be good because I think she’s hot. I’ll still use her of course, whether she’s actually good or not. And who knows, maybe she will be and I’ll be surprised. But I won’t get my hopes up.

Lastly, I’ll briefly cover the “system optimizations” that were talked about at the end of the program. It’s basically a bunch of tips for players to help them strengthen their characters and complete domains more easily. High level material domains will suggest strategies for clearing them faster, and in the character menu there are new buttons that allow you to view suggestions for which Talents to level up next as well as which stats to use on your artifacts, based on data collected from other players. Cool stuff, but I’m already at the point where I’ve pretty much solved Genshin Impact and personally I’d rather watch a detailed guide video to decide what to equip my characters with.

Phew. That was a marathon of a post. Gonna wrap this up here and get back to Genshin so that I can do my grinding for tonight’s Project 888 update post.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention how one of Shinobu’s Passive Talents increases the healing and damage of her Elemental Skill base on her Elemental Mastery, which is just... ew. You would think that HoYoverse wouldn’t pull that shit a second time after the community’s dissatisfaction when they did it with Miko.

The problem with Elemental Mastery scaling is that it’s such a weak stat for Electro characters. I get that HoYoverse wants Electro to be an EM-based element and that’s fine, but they need to make it worth it first. As things stand, Electro characters just benefit more from ATK than they do EM. Electro-based reactions need a buff to their scaling for Elemental Mastery to be good on Electro characters, and the one we got before wasn’t nearly enough. We all know Anemo was the real winner there.

#genshin impact #thoughts #analysis #genshin 2.7 #yelan #kuki shinobu #genshin yelan #genshin shinobu #long ass post

[songzhong]

WARNING ! Massive brainrot.

This is not meant to influence any Genshin characterization whatsoever. Just brainrot from a nerd when speaking on discord with friends about the Statues of the Seven. And apparently hey! this could make a nice blog post for those who likes Mao content.

Again, I hope this is readable although I don’t structure this outside giving tidbits. This is only the surface, I could give many other points about why my thoughts associate the statues with those when comparing to the character they portray histories but we’d be there all night. This is not something I particularly want to debate about if it’s true or false, this falls under mihoYo’s creative team’s creative process. This is meant for FOOD FOR THOUGHT and if you guys are interested and look into good sources for the history of those sculptures and what they symbolize (because again if I started on that this post wouldn’t end gka;kgjfighf), I do encourage you highly !

I do think that, at least, there is INFLUENCE, but if they were targeting any particular, this I cannot know.

Again, this is BRAINROT. Interesting miscelaneous. No claim to canon. copy pasted discord messages pfnfsuaidnsaiudaj.

The Sevens Statues references.

I personally picture the statues being for the ingame universe like the Michelangelo statues and other amazing historical works. This would be supported by the details in Venti’s veiled clothings and, yes, Rex Lapis’ muscle details down to the nipples. While retaining an “anime head” which is the reality the characters in Genshin are made of, their anime appearance is not a cartoon to them, it’s reality.

Plus given that the statues were made to look like the perfect representation of beauty to the place where it was made, I can mostly assume that given Genshin deities are real, the appearance, unlike the historical figures we got, that Zhongli does look exactly like his statues underneath his clothes. (Thus again my thought that he feels like a rock to the touch, very little body fat, his nickname of being the bedrock and all of this.)

I do think that Zhongli's ass is a cocky reference to David because Zhongli is the "adonis" of the Seven (while Barbatos would be more akin to the archangels given his wings and all) but I may be reading too much into it hahahaha !

Barbatos statue makes me think of La Victoire de Samothrace. The statue has lost limbs but you can picture how it was when fully done. Which is also called "The Winged Victory".

I'm gonna make a wild guess and say that someone like either the Tsaritsa or Baal would look like the statue of Venus. Given that both are more or less mentioned like Ethereal beauties. (Baal’s leaked statue might just be changed as it is not very detailed so far)

It may just be me but I like picturing the Tsaritsa with a veil on her face, but again they could make a veil and have her have any pose. I was mostly thinking the Veiled Virgin (at first, but there are plenty of wonderful veiled sculptures).  Veil in marble is just mesmerizing to look at.

Would be great given the grief thematic mentioned of the Tsaritsa if we got the pieta reference (Jesus dying on Mary's lap).

The veiled marble statues are always so melancholic, sorrowful, grieving... but also romantic (love). I thought it'd fit her perfectly.

I don't really have any clear like thought (like Venti's) on what Rex Lapis' statue could be, but I got a theory although its arguable. I think it'd be of Moses’. I thought of the Thinker at first given that Zhongli is looking at a puzzle he’s trying to solve, but I find the throne and more “king-like” position to different from it.

Both sitting in cloth, and while Moses holds the 10 Commandments tablet in his right hand which has God's wisdom, Zhongli holds Guizhong's dumbbell which holds all of Guizhong’s wisdom. Both Moses and Zhongli were individuals who didn't want to lead but were thrust their duties to protect their people from misery. Moses' commandments are also a contract he executed his own people for if they didn't follow it. Moses and Zhongli were both also not particularly scholars before they became the leader they are pictured as. Moses was known for his athleticism. So was Zhongli being known as the brawl of the Guili Assembly. But both were given the duty to spread God's (Guizhong's) wisdom to save their people against all odds.

(For me) It adds up with Moses' history to me a little bit too much to be like "Oh they were both raised to a deity symbol it's a coincidence".

I don't think all of this would affect any characters’ portrayal but more like a wink at art to how they designed the Sevens' statues which is like IRL statues, an interpretation of people seen nearly as Gods. Given how mihoYo is thorough in their research for their games and make many many references far more than anime into both Honkai and Genshin !

―the end Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

Have fun with the game y’all ! Anyone is welcome to reblog that brainrot, just be nice really it’s just my brain spinning for the funsies !

🚪 🚶‍♂️

#.songzhong ( headcanon ) #Anyone is welcome to reblog that brainrot #just be nice really it’s just my brain spinning for the funsies

[kookiesbuckethat]

idk if your requests r open but I'd like a matchup, any group!! any pronouns, wouldn't care if it's male or female.

I'm a sagittarius, intp-t, 5w6. I love anime and manga, I also play games like skyrim and genshin.

I'm 5'4, hispanic(short curly hair + dark brown hair and eyes), I dress in masculine and feminine styles. I have a lot of anime merch + hot topic for clothing if that helps any.

I'm kinda shy and nervous around people, I also don't get along with a lot of them. I'm quiet in public but I'm really talkative with people I'm not irritated by, and I'm more book smart than anything else smart. I tend to say whatever is in my head, which gets me in trouble. I have a short attention span and I'm usually up for arguing.

I match you with...

yoongi!

only some of the members still watch anime now due to their busy schedules but they all used to watch anime back in their trainee and rookie days when they had more spare time, Yoongi included

he’s watched many classics like Naruto and Dragon Ball, but his all tiem favourite is Slam Dunk

he never gets tired of rewatching it or rereading the manga and in turn, you’re forced to as well

you’ve probably watched it at least 20 times now but no matter how much you complain, you can’t help but giggle whenever Yoongi says a line at the same time as the character, knowing the anime by heart

he was dorky like that but you wouldn’t change it for the world

he whines and complains whenever you want to watch a different anime, saying that it’ll never compare to Slam Dunk

but whenever he plans dates for you two at home, he’ll prepare dinner for you two to eat on the couch with one of your favourites ready to play on the television screen

although he’s not as into video games as the maknaes or Jin, he plays his fair share

Yoongi prefers the more chill video games like the one he played during In the Soop so he likes to play Skyrim and Genshin with you

as much as he enjoys playing, some days he just likes to sit beside you and watch your gameplay, occasionally giving you advice

when he notices you’ve gotten too caught up in playing that you haven’t eaten in a while, he quietly slips away into the kitchen to make some snacks for you

sitting back down next you, he places the plate on the table, eating and feeding you so you don’t get your hands dirty and can keep playing

Yoongi has made it very clear that he has no care for gender stereotypes just like the rest of the members and they often express this through their clothing, for example wearing skirts

even though it’s mostly you stealing his clothes, you two share a lot of your clothes since you dress in both masculine and feminine styles

although he does dress more maturely and differently than how he did in his trainee/rookie days, his old style consisted of darker, edgier clothes like those from Hot Topic

he’ll buy you two lots of adorable, matching anime sweatshirts

but one of the ways he shows you just how much he loves you is by letting you borrow his Slam Dunk hoodie which he doesn’t let ANYONE else touch

Yoongi notices how you become more withdrawn in public or when you’re around people you don’t know

he encourages you to try and get along with others but he never pushes you out of your comfort zone or makes you do anything you don’t want to

he offers you comfort just being by your side, simple arm around your waist or a hand on the small of your back to let you know he’s there

he’s proud of how book smart you are as he was never really one for school, and he’s sure to remind everyone about just how smart you are

Yoongi’s also taken notice of your short attention span and often teases you about it

there’s lots of playful banter in your relationship as you’re usually up for arguing

#bts matchups #matchups #bts x reader #yoongi x reader #suga x reader #min yoongi #bts #yoongi fluff

[bloodelves88]

Fundamental Game Design Problems with Genshin Impact

I’ve been playing Genshin Impact since its launch, and I’ve had some sort of a love-hate relationship with it. On one hand, I love the world, the characters, the story, and how it feels so carefree and beautiful. On the other hand, I really hate its leveling system, its gacha system, and the time-reward ratio of its activities.

I find that there are quite a few issues in Genshin Impact that just doesn’t make sense from a game design perspective. These issues make the player want to play less, or avoid features in the game that should not be avoided, and instead should be encouraged to explore. Coincidentally, the very same game design issues do encourage players to spend real money on the game, so I guess that’s the crux of the issue.

Issue 1: The Resin System

If you play Genshin Impact, we all saw this issue coming, didn’t we? 

Resin is basically the stamina/energy that you would know in other gacha games. The problem is that there’s just too little resin, which leads to almost every other problem that I’m going to talk about later.

In short, there’s just too little resin given to the player. The amount of time to recover resin is just too long for the amount of rewards given in exchange.

In Genshin Impact, you can spend resin on ley lines (random fights in the open world that give either character experience or money), domains (instanced fights that give you artifact equipment, or weapon ascension materials), and open world bosses (gives you character ascension materials). Nothing wrong with that, so far so good.

What if I told you that you need to spend approximately 5 hours worth of resin in order to get the rewards from a world boss, and that boss might not even drop the material? Just this past week alone, I spent about 5 days worth of resin on just one boss and nothing else, and I came out with no high tier materials at all. On the bright side, the game does allow you to combine lower tier materials into higher tier materials. This still doesn’t sound too bad... but read on to issue 2 and 3 to see why this becomes a problem that snowballs.

Another strange point is that the weekly quests require you to spend more resin than you can recover. This pretty much means that you must spend real money in order to complete the quest. Totally broken.

Issue 2: The World Level System

In Genshin Impact, there is something called a “World Level”. This determines the level of the monsters in the world, which in turn determines the quality of the loot that they drop.

The problem is, the world level increases as your adventure rank increases. Your adventure rank increases when you do pretty much anything in the game. Completing quests, opening chests, completing domains, defeating bosses, and completing ley lines all give you adventure rank experience. 

This means that you will be kept on your toes, and you cannot afford to spend your resin on things you do not need. God forbid that you end up with a high world level with weak characters. You’re pretty much dead if that happens. 

I’ve not found myself in such a situation yet, and I have no idea if it’s possible to break out of such an impasse. Too weak to farm materials, and no way to get around that. Big oof.  

It’s strange, because this is such a chill and calming game, but the system behind it is anything but. 

Ever since I hit adventure rank 30, I’ve avoided doing any random quests that I come across in the open world (game design problem: your players are avoiding quests). I simply do not want to level up! I’m scared of leveling up (game design problem: your players do not want to level up).

Now, why does this happen? The resin system! The player is just not able to farm enough to become strong enough to handle a higher world level.

There is a minor breather for this though. Every 10 adventure rank levels starting at level 25, there’s a trial that you have to pass before the world level will go up. This gives the you an infinite amount of time to catch up and farm whatever you want, and the world level will not go up. However, you will still earn adventure rank experience, which will all be added once you’ve passed the trial. I skipped level 26-30 this way and jumped two world levels because of this. Luckily, I was prepared enough to handle it.

You might think that this trial is there to counter this problem of being too weak in the world level you’re in. Nope. The boss (electro hypostasis) in the trial is one of the easiest bosses in the game due to a lack of an enrage timer (DPS check) and it has very obvious attacks that are easily dodged. So... it doesn’t gatekeep anything. 

Issue 3: The Leveling System

In Genshin Impact, your characters level up using character experience cards. These cards are dropped from chests, and are given as rewards from quests or ley lines.

In Genshin Impact, you also control a squad of four characters at a time, and elemental reactions and elemental advantages are a big part of the combat system. So, you aren’t just going to be able to get away with training one character, and I’d say that you would need about 6 characters to cover all your bases. 

I’ve personally leveled up two characters to 70, one to 60, two to 50, and one to 40. And I’m all out of character experience cards.

The problem? The resin system! Your main source of character experience cards in the late game would be from ley lines, and this requires resin if you want to gain rewards from it. But wait! I also need resin to farm weapon ascension materials and character ascension materials! Well, too bad. Welcome to Genshin Impact.

The fundamental game design issue from this is that it prevents the player from experimentation. You would think, “Hmm, what would character X be like if I used her in this squad? Oh wait, I don’t have the resources to level her up anyway”. You might think that’s fine, because you might think that you could just go farm some resources to level this character up and try her out. But remember issue 2? Your world level might go up while you’re doing this, which will make all content more difficult to clear. Is there really time for experimentation? What if the character doesn’t work out? Then your main squad hasn’t gained any strength while the world level went up. I guess you’re dead.

I’m not even excited about getting new characters anymore, because I know that all they’ll do is sit in my roster at level 1, and the only time they’ll ever get used is when I send them off to collect materials on expeditions. I have a Venti doing just that. Will I ever be able to train him? Ha! Who knows? Maybe when I’m stuck at adventure rank 45.

So from the start of the game, you have to pick your squad, maybe you’re allowed to deviate and level up two new characters on top of your main four, and that’s it. You got to lock that squad in and never use any other character ever again because you just can’t afford to.

Wut.

Issue 4: The Gacha Rates

In Genshin Impact, the highest rarity (5 star) comes at a 0.6% rate. Compared to other popular gacha games which come in at around 1-2%, the difference is huge.

To me, this alone is already an issue from a design perspective. When it’s too low, it can get people frustrated enough to quit the game (I was planning to, until the last roll I could afford gave me Klee). The amount of money the whales are spending just to get a single character or weapon can easily go into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

Another problem that arises from the poor rates is you start to lack important archetypes in your squad. For a long time I lacked a heavy-hitting claymore user (this is important to break shields and rocks), and I also lacked someone good against frost enemies. So I spent all my free gems (six 10 rolls, worth US$180) and finally got Klee, a fire bomb user. The game does give a free claymore user, but I don’t have the resources to train another character (see, resin raises its ugly head again). The game also does give a good free fire character, but she isn’t fiery enough to fight a whole domain of frost enemies.

If Genshin Impact wants to keep its gacha rates low, fine by me. But the game needs to give all players a complete and well-rounded set of characters that can cover all bases. Every element needs to be countered, a healer is needed, and a shield-breaker is needed. And this set of characters need to do the job well. Having complete jokes of a character like Amber is not going to help. Having a difficult to understand/build character like Noelle is not going to help.

-----

I do like this game, and I do want to keep playing it. But sometimes I wonder if I should wait a little and let Mihoyo fix the game before I start playing again.

#genshin impact

[apompkwrites]

for the reader impact can you do jean and barbara?<3 thank you!

reader impact || first meeting: gunnhildr sisters

series masterlist characters: barbara, jean genre: fluff summary: a game has been released entitled genshin impact, consisting of otherworldly abilities relying on the basic elements of nature. the game follows the story of an interdimensional traveling twin in search of their other half. along this journey, they meet different characters that live in this world. including you. notes: i've never written these girls before... and honestly i've never written any of the other girls :(( i'm trying!! i hope this is good!

barbara -

barbara doesn't get to stream too often.

or at least, not as often as she'd like to.

as an idol, she still has a lot of responsiblities outside of streaming.

you know, training, concerts, all of that.

but, when she has the time, she loves streaming with her big sister :D

she doesn't do a lot of music streams solely because she needs a break from all of the idol work she does.

she isn't too into pvp based games and, instead, prefers to play more lighthearted ones!

she's a very soft and sweet streamer :)

her chat is normally very sweet as well because of how hard the mods are on how they act.

jean is also a mod on her streams whenever she isn't streaming.

and vice versa!

barbara loves to please her fans, so it's no surprise when she picks up genshin impact from many fan requests!

this game is probably the only she's fine with playing combat for.

once she starts, she absolutely loves the music.

she doesn't do music streams like i said, but she'll still fawn over any ost she genuinely enjoys.

anyway, here she goes starting the game.

she really loves the story so far, despite it starting a bit... sad.

she actually almost cried in the beginning of that.

just thinking about her sister being taken from her was something she hated imagining.

the more she plays, the more interesting the game becomes.

especially because she's following a bard who is, apparently, the god of the city she's currently in.

she feels really bad for him though, considering a close friend of his has seemingly been manipulated.

she doesn't like that she has to steal the lyre from the church...

and she feels even worse when the lyre they were supposed to take is stolen by someone else right in front of them.

but, luckily, they get it back.

and then it breaks...

she's afraid of the part of the game where she needs to actually return it.

and unfortunately, that time comes way too quick.

she meets with the acting grand master at the church, nervously fiddling with her fingers as the game takes over for dialogue.

"this is (name), the deacon/ess of the church."

that nervousness (almost) washes away as soon as she sees you onscreen :0

"may the anemo archon protect you."

"THEY'RE SO CUTE!"

she absolutely loves your voice!!!

be it soft and quiet or loud and excitable, she doesn't care.

you're cute and she wants nothing more than to have you as a permanent part of her team.

but then she's reminded of the fact that she's broken the lyre...

her character holds it out to you, causing to reel back in shock.

"AAAAAARGH!!! THE HOLY LYRE!!!"

"I'M SO SORRY!"

and when you start praying, she'll pray with you.

she just wants to make it up to you :(

after the strange... encounter with la signora, her character passes out.

only to wake up with you right in front of her!!!!!

you look so soft and sweet and--

she doesn't expect you to come to her team immediately because of the gacha system, so she's ready to just save primogems until she can get you.

but!!! she does!

and you best bet that you'll be on her team until this game ends.

jean -

jean, just like her younger sister, doesn't get to stream as often as she would like to.

she multitasks a lot so it's hard for her to put out good content when she's preoccupied by so many other projects.

luckily, the rare occasions she does stream, they're more relaxed.

the only reason she's able to calm down while streaming is that it still feels like she's getting things done.

it also lets her have some fun while working :D

her chat keeps trying to get her to take a break but... she just can't.

the things she does onstream are pretty normal.

she doesn't play games too often.

instead, she likes to do her everyday work onstream :)

like cooking! she absolutely loves doing cooking streams so that she can get two things done at once :D

the times she gets to actually play games are when barbara's home.

she'd rather play co-op games so they can spend time together.

because of that, barbara's the one that actually encourages her to start playing genshin!

it's a rather long game with objectives, so she thinks it'll be the best type of solo game for jean to play.

and! there's co-op so they can play together :))

just like her sister, she gets a bit emotional during the intro cutscene.

she just can't stand the thought.

as the game progresses, she actually finds herself having fun with a more slow-paced solo game.

of course, there are moments where it picks up.

once dvalin/stormterror is introduced, jean finds herself needing to go to the knights' headquarters.

at first she thinks she'll get to explore the actual building.

instead, she gets to go straight to a cutscene.

it pans up and all she knows is that she's in love with your design!

"(name), what's the hurry? i thought we agreed to meet them here."

the librarian in your office is a close second to her favorite character.

that spots already been reserved for you and you haven't even talked yet!

"there have been sightings of stormterror outside the city. once we meet, we must..."

just from how your character is written, she can tell how hardworking you are.

and that's exactly what jean looks for in a character.

she just... relates to you so much??

and her chat agrees.

you two are practically the same person at this point.

she appreciates how straightforward you are and definitely looks forward to getting to know you more :))

#genshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin impact headcanons #genshin impact imagines #genshin impact scenarios #genshin impact fluff #genshin impact barbara #genshin impact barbara x reader #genshin barbara #genshin barbara x reader #barbara x reader #genshin impact jean #genshin impact jean x reader #genshin jean #genshin jean x reader #jean x reader #reader impact

[outivv]

Yae Miko and Ei with an s/o that does their best to work hard but gets demotivated when they see others being more successful than them and feel down to continue their work

Synopsis: a s/o who becomes demotivated easily when seeing others more successful

Warnings: not proofread

Game/ fandom: genshin impact

Characters: yae miko, and Ei

Pronouns for reader: gender neutral/ not mentioned

A/n: hello again! Thank you for requesting! Hm… I don’t really have much to say so I hope you enjoy, and take care of yourself! Remember to eat three meals a day! :D

— yae miko —

Yae notices your behavior shifting whenever you see someone “better” at you than something. She thinks your great at many things that you do, but you seem to think… differently

She understands being picky with your work, but… give yourself the credit you deserve! Your work is amazing, and she wants, no, needs you to know that!

She’ll walk with you when she’s not busy with her shrine maiden duties, as a way for you to gain inspiration for your work, or just to clear your head. It depends on what your passion/ hobby is.

Will be very supportive of you, and your work, reminding you not to compare yourself to others in a way that puts yourself down. It’s ok to compare your work t another’s and build off of it, and she’ll make that known, but in a way that’s harmful, or just… hurts… that’s not ok!

— Ei —

Ei somewhat understands how you feel. She’d often compare her abilities to another’s, and feel discouraged because of it. But, makoto was there for her and would push her forward. She what’s your do that for you.

She may partake in your hobby/ passion with you if she can. If your thing is drawing then she’ll draw with you! It won’t be nearly as good as yours, but hey it was fun drawing with you! If your thing is sailing, she’ll join you ok a nice boat ride! She loves gazing at the ocean with you, and it’s very calming! If your thing is cooking then… she’ll gladly try your food when you’re done!

Like yae miko she’ll definitely encourage you, but in her own way. It may be a bit… over the top, and feels kind of fake. It’s still endearing though, and it shows that she does care about you, and your work!

She is the shogun… so hypothetically she could just… ban other people from doing whatever your passion/ hobby is… I’m kidding of course! :D

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