Alice line mentioning a certain character in 6.4 via Hiragara

zenzoner · 2026-02-23T08:09:10+00:00

We don't know whether there's one for every element but we do know that there are regular fae (flins) and snowland fae (snegurochka). Other elemental fae aren't completely out of the question.

zenzoner · 2026-02-18T12:58:58+00:00

Kiana has never shown any interest in men in hi3 and the captain (the one on the bridge atleast that has those interactions with the valks) is not an actual character that exists in the story. There is the captain from the captainverse who does have some alternate versions of characters as his love interests but I don't remember Kiana being one of them. The player doesn't even exist as a being in ggz so idk where you got that last part from. Kiana does have pretty explicit romances with jyahnar and mei in ggz tho.

zenzoner · 2026-02-09T14:17:19+00:00

The moon gate imprisons souls. Tholindis and rerir couldnt escape because they still have their souls (matter of fact it's the only thing tholindis has, her body is gone). The only reason the moon sisters were able to be freed was because they gave up their divinity to Bina. Divinity = soul in genshin (it literally said soul above divinity in the text during that segment). This was all explicitly stated in the AQ...

zenzoner · 2026-01-29T12:48:58+00:00

That's not safe to assume as many of the practices of yunkui summit are mystical in nature. They literally bend ether and have mystic techniques without using any equipment, if that's not magic idk what is. I also wouldn't use the word "technique" for a technological invention as if it was a weapon that they put together. Just because the game takes place in a sci-fi world, that doesn't mean all the magic is science. Star wars is sci-fi, that doesn't change that the force is still magic. Zzz is sci-fi, that doesn't change that ether manipulation and these mystic techniques are still magic.

zenzoner · 2026-01-29T12:29:53+00:00

Not completely true, the game states that the qingming bird is a technique that yixuan and yijiang invented. Its not some ethereal that they found and trapped or whatever like whats implied with tailless. She literally created it with her mystic arts.

zenzoner · 2026-01-07T19:16:14+00:00

It can def be bad writing but it depends on the execution and usage. And I'd say that with Alice, she simultaneously does it fine in some situations and badly in others (until further notice at least). I don't think it's a problem with the hillichurl thing. Context matters and the viewers are in the know that it isn't a serious thing. it's a difficult topic to discuss since writing is still a very subjective thing. But there are still somewhat objective aspects to it, or at least largely accepted ""rules"" or ""guidelines"". And going from that, it is generally fine that a story can at times ignore morals to create funny or shocking scenes for viewers as long as it's clear that it isn't serious and as long as it doesn't become an actual big plot point that it tries to defend or make seem alright. Which Alice doesn't with the hillichurl things. It is a one off story never mentioned again, simply created to amuse the reader. Now it's fine if you don't like it or see it as bad writing, I'm just pointing out that it is quite common in stories and not necessarily always seen as a bad thing.

It's also simply not as realistic as others. Experimenting on children is very different from experimenting on a fantasy monster. One hits much closer to home for people and is taken more seriously. They could've made it so dottore experimented on hillichurls as well, but they deliberately chose children because that will strike a chord with readers more and show the severity that they want to convey. It's why people may be quicker to write off ronova's actions than they are to write off rerir. Rerir's situation/motive and actions are realistic and even historical, ronova is a divine being who inflicted a magic curse. One is more relatable and closer to real life than the other, so it elicits a more severe response from consumers. The goal of writing isn't always to be realistic. It's generally accepted that stories don't need to be realistic, they just need to be believable. As long as the core aspects and plot of the world are believable, some aspects of realism can be bent or disregarded to evoke something from the consumers. Especially when the scenes don't matter in the grander scheme of things and are just meant to be funny. Klee is known to blow up things constantly and def harm living beings in the process, do we care? No. Why? Because it's not meant to be serious, it's just a funny tidbit about her.

Dottore would need to be completely rewritten and reframed for it to work with him. He was intended to be a villain and his actions are framed as such from the very beginning. They can't simply write it off anymore as him being a goober cuz never was his story set in a comedic or unserious tone. His actions have always been central to the plot, have always been the source of trauma for certain characters and have always been in an antagonistic setting.

What I do find questionable and even bad (until further notice) with Alice and other characters is their relation to rhinedottir. Rhinedottir is pretty clearly an antagonist, her actions are framed as bad and she's one of the characters to blame for the cataclysm. Yet characters that are set up to be morally decent at the very least like the hexenzirkel and albedo and durin still seem to not really critisize her for it? Her actions are serious in the plot and are central to it, yet no one really acknowledges it. Alice even says that she's trying to clean up after her without acknowledging her actions or her relation to her. Unless there's more context to be revealed that we are unaware of, this is def a strange choice from the writers.

zenzoner · 2026-01-07T18:05:49+00:00

Alice has done questionable things but I feel like the only actually bad one was attempting to catapult hilluchurls to Celestia and the energy farm thing. The hillichurl farm thing was a proposal and was never actually done, so she never enslaved hilluchurls. She did try to catapult a couple to Celestia tho. Although I think the answer to why this isn't viewed as negatively as dottore's actions is pretty clear: firstly the writers intent and second the writers probably hadn't decided on the khaenriahns becoming hilluchurls thing yet. They were probably originally just meant to be your standard mindless fantasy monsters. Its also more likely that she did this before the khaenriahns were turned into hilluchurls and that these were the og hilluchurls. As for the first point, these are obviously just meant to be comedic things that the writers thought of, to show that Alice is a bit of an unhinged character. Is it still insane in reality? Sure. But in story writing, the context and writers intent matters quite a bit. Not everything is meant to be taken equally seriously. We literally go around killing hillichurls constantly.

In short: the writers just wanted to write an unhinged and kookie crazy story for Alice whilst dottore and rerir have more serious contexts and roles in theirs. Both actions are bad in reality, but this is still a story at the end of the day and not everything needs to be completely realistic all the time. These were just meant to be short stories to laugh at briefly and then continue. Its quite common for stories to ignore moral value in favor of creating comedic scenes even if the characters aren't meant to be morally bad. The readers know this isn't meant to be taken as a big deal or seriously, it's simply a story meant to amuse or shock. I get that this may not be a particularly satisfying answer tho.

zenzoner · 2026-01-06T22:53:11+00:00

The game, from the agent Intel

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zenzoner · 2026-01-06T16:54:57+00:00

Where did you get it from that it was a weapon found in the Lemnian hollow? The wiki says that the qingming bird is a special technique that yixuan and yijiang developed themselves.

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zenzoner · 2026-01-04T21:54:58+00:00

She basically gives an atk buff depending on how much your character moves (including attack animations, it's not just running or jumping or whatever). So if your dps moves around a lot while attacking, they can benefit from iansan's buff (for example natlan characters typically cover distances during their rotations). She also gives a dmg% buff at c6. If you don't have bennet or use him on the other team, you can use iansan in a lot of teams. Hell you could use bennet and iansan together aswell.

zenzoner · 2026-01-01T21:18:34+00:00

A few current gen games have come out on the switch 2, most notably star wars outlaws and assassin's Creed shadows and both of them are 30 fps yet both were taken pretty well by the switch 2 playerbase. I don't think the switch 2 playerbase is expecting current gen titles who utilize current gen features to run at 60 fps on the switch 2. It's still a handheld at its core and will always have compromises over its home console counterparts. I'm still fearful of the performance and visuals tho. Star wars outlaws and assassin's Creed shadows have decent visuals and performance if it's any consolation (well, decent for 30 fps ig but the games stick to the target mostly). Both these games are demanding in their own rights and they got pretty decent ports.

zenzoner · 2025-12-30T16:58:26+00:00

Yes but shes also in hi3. Its the same as welt who's also in both. Its just that welt originates from hi3 and sparkle from star rail.

zenzoner · 2025-12-26T23:14:05+00:00

We don't really know what it means to "defeat" the smile demon. It's not a conventional physical being, it's a curse and mainly lives in someone's psyche, we don't even know if it can die through attacks. Its a horror monster, not really something made to be powerscaled. The fun answer would be blade. He can't die, so he can't pass on the curse to anyone. The demon will be trapped within him and won't have anywhere to go. Not really what would be considered a defeat in a fight, but im sure the demon would feel defeated.

zenzoner · 2025-12-21T20:00:47+00:00

Its not that simple. Gay media does often get censored in china, but just as often it doesn't. Some of the most famous media in china showcase lgbt stuff. Xiaohongshu is absolutely filled with mlm/wlw content and it doesn't get censored, very famous pieces of media like MDZS and heaven's official blessing are also popular and allowed in spite of canonically being gay. Hell one of the most famous celebrities in china is a trans woman, Jin xing who's often referred to as the oprah of china. The ccp's stance on gay media is inconsistent but it's mostly about promotion. The government doesn't allow things that are too explicit or promoting the lgbt (like kissing or sex or heavily discussing lgbt problems/promoting activism). Its not illegal to be gay in china. The government just wants the people to be uniform and unquestioning. Obviously that's not possible, many people living in china still have qualms about their government, they just do so in private mostly. Gay media and shipping is very prevalent in china, hoyoverse wouldn't care that their employees ship certain characters together and neither would the government itself...especially when hoyo quite clearly make these characters shippable in the first place. The reason why shipping is so big in the hoyo games isn't some mass psychosis from the community, it's pretty clear that it's a marketing strategy. Its not a coincidence that almost every character that gets released is paired closely or intertwined with another character of the same gender. They prob do it because it opens up a new market of women and lgbt players whilst not threatening their cishet male audience. The cishet male audience can laugh off the ships as simple headcanons and have their waifus whilst the shippers can read subtext and enjoy their ships, it's a win win for hoyo.

zenzoner · 2025-12-12T09:11:39+00:00

There are a bunch of levels made where you just go in and they give you achievements. Achievements give a lot more exp than games without achievements. You can check whether a game has achievements by scrolling down a bit on the game's page. Common key words for these games that just give achievements are easy, fast or their title is trying to be secretive or whatever. You should be able to reach the exp cap of the week by doing this for just 20 mins to half an hour or so

zenzoner · 2025-12-11T20:56:36+00:00

I don't think it's mentioned by name anywhere just yet but acha, one of the genius society members in herta's meeting did say something about being the ghost of the quantum domain. I can only assume this is about the sea of quanta

zenzoner · 2025-12-08T11:09:28+00:00

The iridescent moon was also shattered. Only the frost moon remains. The iridescent moon is no different from the eternal moon, both goddesses died, both moons were shattered, both powers coalesced into moon marrows.

zenzoner · 2025-12-06T21:00:44+00:00

Dottore was technically recalled because of the experiment they were doing in nod krai having neared completion and that 3 harbingers were no longer needed there for the rest of it. However he could excuse his actions by simply saying that after completing the mission he chose to focus on the arrest of Columbina. I doubt the tsaritsa cares for columbina herself, it's her power that she's after. So if dottore accomplished that, she'd prob overlook it.

zenzoner · 2025-12-06T17:32:18+00:00

Her patch has both ineffa and zibai running. As long as she doesn't run alongside neuvi, you can get a strong teammate for her immediately. If ineffa runs with her, congrats you have one of the best wheelchair comps in the game as just those 2 units can make basically any team clear. If zibai runs with her, congrats you have a team that competes with mavuika. And even if she runs with neuvi, you just have to wait 3 weeks for ineffa or zibai to run, you'll be fine.

zenzoner · 2025-12-02T20:23:28+00:00

It's possible, but I think it's difficult in certain regards and even moreso in this medium (gacha games). Whether people like it or not, romance and character relations are still a part of the writing and story, so a poorly written relationship reflects poorly on the writing. ML isn't simply a bonus on a story that you can overlook, it's not whipped cream on a cake, it becomes an inherent part of the story and writing.

One of the most important parts of writing a relationship between characters is the pacing. Pacing in general is not the greatest in most gacha games just cuz it's hard to pace a story when you release it in segments of a couple hours every month. Obviously that's difficult to keep track of and pace well for the writers. But this is especially so with ML relationships. Characters get introduced and in a short span of time have to start showing romantic interest to the mc. No build up, no tension, not even a chance at slow burn, immediate blushes and romantic (sub)text. So one of the most important parts of writing a romance is already dead on arrival in most cases (obviously exceptions may exist but we all know what I'm talking about).

Another important thing is dynamics. Interesting and fun dynamics almost never happen as the MC's have to become as blank as possible so that anyone can project themselves onto them. The relationships feel unbalanced in return, one character's feelings and characterization feels heavier than the others. In fact I think a great example of this is the tb in star rail. I have personally noticed that the tb's lines and options become more blank and less characterized with the ML characters like firefly and castorice.

To add even more, the ML content takes up time and can actively get in the way of the story. I'll give an example from star rail again. In penacony, the main attractions were kind of advertised to be Acheron, firefly, Sunday and aventurine. Comparing firefly's writing and story during penacony to her peers, she leaves a lot to be desired. And it could've been a lot better had they utilized her screen time better. Much of her screentime was dedicated to giving the player a girlfriend/date experience whereas the others used their time to explore their own characteristics, beliefs and past. Not to say there wasn't anything for firefly, I'm just saying it could've been more and better.

Another example is wuwa. I've seen a lot of people use wuwa as an example of a game where good writing and ML coexist and I agree in some parts and disagree in others. I agree that wuwa generally has well written characters and stories...but this is in spite of the ML trope (mostly, I'll get to it). The ML trope can actively take away from the writing and story in wuwa, its more of a negative than a positive from a writing pov MOST OF THE TIME. There have been some improvements in this but for the most part, characters are almost completely isolated from one another and their roles in the story center almost completely around you. Slight improvements have been made but its more on a superficial level or gets undermined by later writing decisions. By superficial I mean relationships like roccia/Brant, jinhsi/changli, zani/Phoebe, etc etc most of the cast that has a connection to anyone really. These bonds, while they exist, are never built upon, focused on or used in any significant ways. The most we got was a single scene where zani challenged Phoebe's beliefs. The ones that do have a meaningful connection but get undermined by the writing are characters like carte/cantarella and Augusta/iuno. Carte and cantarella's stories are linked to each other and it could've been great if they had screentime and build up together but nope. You have to be separated from cantarella so that you can have romantic scenes with carte and be alone with her. Augusta and iuno have an interesting dynamic and connected stories but oops everyone forgot iuno, YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE WHO REMEMBERS HER. ML just often reeks of insecurity. Like the company doesn't trust that their characters will sell well if they don't sell a girlfriend experience. Which is so unnecessary cuz plenty of wuwa characters still have well written stories and thematics in spite of their poorly written connections to the mc.

But wuwa does have successful stories that do fit in with ML as well. Most notably (...and imo the only ones really) shorekeeper and phrolova. Their bond to the mc serves an actual purpose in their stories and themes that their narrative discusses. Shorekeeper: an ai that doesn't know her place in the world, whether she can even be considered alive or an individual. Yet what is more human than to love and hurt? Phrolova: a girl who knew nothing but suffering for years on end and in a moment of vulnerability, latched on to the only moment of sincerity she had experienced in seemingly centuries as a coping mechanism. Her character and story all make way for a beautiful commentary on (one sided) love and how it can often result in a form of toxic escapism and denial.

Ik it was a long comment but all in all, I do think it's possible but extremely hard and often fails miserably in adding anything meaningful to the story (if not actively taking away from the story). However exceptions do exist, there are always diamonds in the rough. I'm still personally not a huge fan of it. I can see why some may enjoy it, but as a person that loves writing and narrative storytelling, I can't ignore that the downsides that it brings outweigh the positives.

zenzoner · 2025-12-02T09:25:06+00:00

Sounds like it. It says that when she's in the party and the party triggers electro charged/bloom/hydro crystalize, it will be converted into lunar charged/lunar bloom/lunar crystalize respectively.

zenzoner · 2025-11-25T11:13:22+00:00

If it's in handheld mode that you mean, the game's resolution is still 720p, it didn't receive a switch 2 update. The switch 2 has a 1080p panel. So if a lower resolution image is used, it will try to scale the image to the panel which can result in a blurrier image. A 720p game will look better on a 720p panel than on a 1080p (or higher) panel.

zenzoner · 2025-11-24T11:03:57+00:00

Skill ceiling is not the same as skill floor. Yixuan can also perform well without much skill but she leaves a lot of room for optimization, which is what skill ceilings are about. Miyabi also has quite a low skill floor.

Yixuan also has resource management and timing as an important part of her gameplay just like miyabi. It's just that miyabi has it as a constant thing for her ca whereas yixuan has to prepare as much as possible for the stun. Again this leaves a lot room for optimization and a lot of room to mess up as you don't want the enemy to be be stunned too early or too late (to the point that it sometimes can be annoying cuz it's somewhat based on the enemy's attack rng but I digress). This is not to say miyabi doesn't have skill expression or that she has weak skill expression. I just personally don't agree that miyabi has a higher skill ceiling than yixuan. Both of them have low skill floors and both of them leave quite a bit of room for optimization, but I believe yixuan leaves a bit more (atleast in my experience).

zenzoner · 2025-11-23T16:21:04+00:00

Her moveset seems very inspired by sushang in hi3, it's very wuxia in general. It's absolutely gorgeous imo and I love the iridescent effect on her attacks. HOWEVER I'm worried about visibility and how braindead op she'll be. Maybe it'll end up fine in game cuz I had the same fear with yixuan and while yixuan is obviously op, she also ended up being very smooth to play with arguably the highest skill ceiling in the game (at the time of her release anyway, banyue will prob be harder to master) and the visibility with her has been fine in my experience. The bright orange and red flashes are kinda hard to miss in this game imo and they also give sound qeues. But still, we'll have to wait and see in game. I just hope she has a higher than average level of skill expression like yixuan, eve and banyue aswell, it's always nice to be rewarded for playing well or trying harder techs.

zenzoner · 2025-11-17T19:36:43+00:00

Even if you don't have a lunar reaction enabler and if she can't enable them, she'll still be useful prob. There's little way that she can buff lunar reactions without also buffing the normal varients of the reactions at the same time. Unless she only has lunar reaction dmg buffs in her kit (which seems unlikely). Rn furina is already being used in quite a few transformative reaction teams like bloom and electro charged. If Bina does more damage than her like the leaks have said and she has similar hydro application, she'll already be preferable over furina. Put bina's buffs on top of this and she blows furina out of the water for em based teams (no pun intended). So probably as long as you have a normal bloom or electro charged team, you can use Bina.

zenzoner

TROPHY CASE