#jaime plays hsr

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More HSR, this time with less spoiler.

The more I think about their interactions, the more I inch toward the Aventurine/Ratio train, because they're fascinating and less toxic than they appear on the surface and absolutely fucking hilarious when they're together. And also hot, that part's important too. And because that last note from Ratio made me sniffle and go "see you asshole, he actually LIKES you."

Also, and I will not be taking criticism at this time - in dynamics (not actual expys per se) they're a different universe/different circumstances version of Kaveh and Alhaitham that is both more AND less toxic at the same time. And it's not just because Aventurine's "real" name sounds like Kaveh's, I promise. That just made me start thinking about it.

#jaime plays hsr #star rail spoilers #sorta? #also the fact that their ship name is raturine is perfect A+ no notes #it's what they deserve (affectionate)

[msviolacea]

SO. That Star Rail 2.1 story, huh?

Come for weird shenanigans in Dreamscape Disneyland run by Space Mormons, stay for ... shit, why am I crying this hard over someone whose face is THAT punchable?

A few comments below, spoilers ahoy!

They've clearly decided that they're going to hide the important characters that they want to have mystery around/big reveals for in the 4 star characters. Which honestly is brilliant because the leakers mostly don't give a shit about the 4 stars, they're too busy digging up every last morsel of info on whoever the latest big titty 5 star waifu is to bother. (Said with love for the characters themselves, just ... truth.)

I did have an inkling that something was up with Gallagher back in the 2.0 story when the other Hounds seemed not to know him that well, and knew for sure something was sus when the ones in this patch didn't recognize his name when he was standing right there. But I did NOT go as far as to expect Hot Vengeful Murderer. Holy shit.

That having been said, thanks to drip marketing, we know that at least some (one) of the victims are not entirely dead, and a big deal has been made about the nature of death in dreams, so my current theory is that he's less full murdering people than he is somehow waking them up or sending them to some other portion of the dream. We will see!

In other husbando news, Aventurine is the most meow meow to ever meow and I would die for his smarmy pitiful wet cat in a designer suit ass. Someone on Discord said that this is his EN VA's first voiceover role and if that's true he has a fucking brilliant career ahead of him because he fucking killed all of that. It takes talent to maintain that level of "you want to punch me and then hug me and then punch me again through the tears" throughout that much spotlight time.

And speaking of VAs, Allegra Clark. That's it, that's the comment. Allegra Clark. Just imagine a ton of sparkly animated hearts here. I feel so, like, seventh-hand proud of her after first encountering her as an Isabela cosplayer on my Tumblr dashboard back in the Dragon Age days.

(The EN VAs are killing it in Penacony - like, this is a level up for sure.)

I'm glad I've been diving into HI3 lore because it made the conversation between Acheron and Welt so much more meaningful. I'd be curious to hear from someone who has no idea about HI3, though - I think the weight of the connection would have come through regardless, but it'd be interesting to hear what someone thought.

I'd been spoiled about the Firefly-Sam connection a long, long time ago - thanks leakers, I've mostly flyswatted you on YouTube now, but for fuck's sake - but I'm super curious to actually hear about how that works and how they fit in with the Stellaron Hunters.

There's just ... so much. SO MUCH. EVERYTHING HAPPENED SO MUCH. EVERYTHING.

#jaime plays hsr #honkai star rail #star rail spoilers #this game is insane #and i need more people to flail about it with me

[msviolacea]

The current Honkai Star Rail ghost hunting event is maybe the best one yet - I love hanging out with Sushang, Guinafen, and Huo Huo, the social media thing is hilarious (especially once you know which canon characters belong to which screen names - i.e., that Jing Yuan is on fake ghost hunting tiktok teasing Fu Xuan about how short she is, lol) (I may ship it, just a little), and the lore they're dropping is really interesting. In that way, I'm really happy with HSR's "permanent" event setup, that future players can get this content without the special rewards, because if this was a limited time event I'd definitely be unhappy about how much character stuff and lore would disappear.

But anyway, the biggest thing I've come away with so far is feeling a LOT of sympathy for Yanqing, and considering the folly of a civilization/government attempting to erase their own history. Like, here's a kid, he's a member of an effectively immortal species, but he's a teenager - either in actuality or in relative age to his centuries-old fellows. Yes, he's a swordplay savant and has earned a place as a military officer at his young age, but he's still stupidly young. He's the protege of the Arbiter General, the most powerful man on the Luofu, but Jing Yuan has clearly not told him anything more of what truly happened with the High Cloud Quintet than is public knowledge. And that public knowledge appears to be no more than "So, these 5 were heroes, until Imbibitor Lunae and his (boy)friend did something unspeakable with Vidyadhara magic and got themselves exiled permanently. Also we erased the entire identity of the greatest swordsperson in our history and pretend she doesn't exist, don't ask us why." And I'm sure that there are plenty of people who are either old enough to remember what actually happened, or have parents/grandparents who witnessed what happened, but Yanqing is not one of them.

So we have this teenaged kid, with a relatively high level military rank and an ego to match that his mentor has indulged up until now, and a strong sense of right and wrong. He sees what he believes to be a blind woman wandering through an active combat zone and offers to escort her to where she's going. Unfortunately for him, that woman is the aforementioned sword champion whose entire identity has been erased from history, so he has no idea that she's a) the person he high-key idolizes, b) his mentor's old mentor, and c) gone semi-batshit with mara and here to fuck shit up. So she kicks his ass and laughs at him, which is the perfect way to get under a teenager's skin, and leaves him humiliated.

And then Yanqing hears that one of the two most infamous exiled criminals in the Luofu's history, who had been caught coming back and imprisoned, has escaped and is once again running around free. So, he goes hunting, because it's the duty of a Cloud Knight to capture this criminal, and also it's maybe a way to redeem himself. But once again, he doesn't have the full information, which is that a) this criminal is nearly as good at the sword as the woman who just kicked his ass, because she brutally trained him, b) this criminal is even MORE batshit marastruck because he's a more short-lived human, which shouldn't even be possible, and c) oh yeah, Imbibitor Lunae is also here, hiding as a member of the Astral Express crew, so now he's gonna have to fight BOTH of the most infamous exiled criminals in Luofu history. But he refuses to back down, so that goes about as well as one might expect.

But Jing Yuan shows up! So the day will be saved, right? But Yanqing hasn't really thought about the fact that these two criminals were once Jing Yuan's best friends - which he probably knew in the abstract, because he knows that Jing Yuan is the last surviving non-exiled member of the High Cloud Quintet - but has had no reason to contemplate what that might mean until now. And, well, these are the worst criminals in his people's history, right? So Jing Yuan is here to back him up?

Wrong. His beloved mentor actually snaps at him to back off, and then lets them go.

I mean, no wonder this kid is messed up. No wonder he lets a heliobus get into his head with promises of making him better, stronger, more worthy of being a Cloud Knight. I'm so glad that something permanent, that every player can access, addresses the way he's feeling after all that. And I'm glad that Jing Yuan acknowledges that it's his fault, his failing as Yanqing's master for not properly preparing him for this eventuality, or helping him process it afterward. Not that Jing Yuan did anything wrong in his dealings with Blade and Dan Heng, but the man is constantly playing 5D chess with the entire universe and never lets anyone in on his thoughts, which is his primary failing. An understandable one, given his circumstances, but not one that particularly helps anyone around him deal with the fallout from his schemes.

So yes. I have more feels about Yanqing than I ever thought I would. Join me next time when I have almost the same amount of feels about Qingque and how actually good she is at being a diviner when she's not using her clearly stellar brain to figure out new ways to slack off, and how I hope she ends up being Fu Xuan's second in command and is forced to bitch about it for the next several hundred years.

#jaime plays hsr #honkai star rail #listen this event is great for luofu character stuff #i love everything happening here

[msviolacea]

I am about to become a Honkai Star Rail blog and I'm not even sorry.

You probably have at least the weekend for reprieve, because I still have a whole other planet to get through story-wise, but man am I totally in love with a strange family of three amnesiacs and their hot parental figures traveling through space on a steam train and helping planets figure out their shit as they go. If the phrase "Mass Effect meets Persona" sounds at all appealing to you, go now, it's free to play, you will not regret it.

Now, back to trying to grind up three more levels so I can get to the next part of the story.

#jaime plays hsr #this is everything i could have wanted #and more

[msviolacea]

This might be the gayest promo video Hoyo has made* - or at least tied with the ridiculous double date that was Alhaitham's trailer and the Black Swan/Acheron rondo.

* At least in terms of Genshin and Star Rail, I have watched very little HI3 et al promos, so append "of the games I care about" to the statement as you need.

#jaime plays hsr #when i first watched this #the top YT comment was 'ratio ... your tsundere is slipping out' #which is the most accurate observation one can make about all of this #also shoutout to owlbert's VA for always being A+ #Youtube