miHoYo, wtf

So, I'm watching:

At 4:48, 青镞 is all "这样啊……持明转世，前生的一切果真烟消云散了。" I don't know how the English translation handled this line, but here Qingzu is confirming that yes, in fact, Dan Heng has forgotten his previous memories. But she's saying it a) very seriously and b) as if she were surprised.

From a character perspective, this is a weird writing decision, since Qingzu herself is also a Vidyadhara, why would this be surprising to her? Like, if she were a normal Xianzhou Native, then OK, I can understand needing first hand confirmation, because she wouldn't have the same lived in experience. But she experiences this stuff herself. Why would she be surprised?! It's maaaaybe possible to read this as Qingzu isn't quite believing Dan Heng's claim that he doesn't have memories of the past but like...the voice acting definitely does not convey this.

And no, I don't think "Qingzu is a troll" is enough to explain this line. She's clearly someone who picks her timing when pulling on the protagonist's leg. 1.4 is an emotionally heavy story that touches on Jing Yuan's past emotional trauma. She's been shown to be very worried about Jing Yuan's mental and physical health, so she wouldn't be joking around with something this serious.

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At 16:56, Yanqing finally remembers 白珩 from a book he read, suggesting that despite being Jing Yuan's disciple, Jing Yuan never talked to Yanqing about his past friendships. Makes me want to smack Yanqing, but also WTF, how is it possible that the names of the Quintet aren't remembered despite the Quintet being immensely famous? Like...just exactly how famous are the Quintet?

But also, why can you create star skiffs randomly during this quest? Like how regulated is the travel anyway? Again, I don't see why the story needs this frankly ridiculous excuse when it can just have us fold a paper boat and send off a light instead of making an entire star skiff to deliver this via cutscene...

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At 28:45, Jingliu basically says Yingxing used the flesh of "丰饶令使" to help Dan Feng try to revive 白珩. So uh...which is it? The flesh of Shuhu (presumably what's being referenced) or was it 建木? I'm going with the corpse of Shuhu, mostly because this is directly from one of the original Quintet, thus probably the most accurate recounting of the event.

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At 36:03 Bailu's advice to drink lots of hot water (多喝热水) is um... I'm pretty sure this is completely lost on any non-Chinese person, because that specific line is a well known slang for "useless medical advice". I can't tell if the story is trying to say Bailu is a good or bad doctor...

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This is bringing up a point that I've been wanting to make about the Luofu/Xianzhou arc for a while now, and that's miHoYo's writing has been immensely inconsistent when it comes to the backstory. The lines are often written in a way that's meant to deliver lore without consideration for the character, which makes me seriously question what is and isn't canon, and how much editing the writing actually goes through.

For example, let's look at the two PVs for the story arc: A Flash and Ichor of Two Dragons. In A Flash, Jing Yuan never refers to Jing Liu by name, always uses 师傅 title, because he's a good little soldier. The events of A Flash is supposed to happen after the memory that Dan Heng is reminiscing in Ichor of Two Dragons, and yet, in the latter PV, Jing Yuan calls Jing Liu by name. Furthermore, JY also states that both Dan Feng and Yingxing are still sore over losing a sword fight to Jing Liu. This is patently nonsense since we know Yingxing never learned how to fight until after he got pulled out of jail by Jing Liu.

Meanwhile, in A Flash, the implication is Jing Yuan actually kills Jing Liu, what with the foreshadowing of Jing Liu telling Jing Yuan to cut her down once she befalls Mara. Yet this is in direct contradiction of the actual game plot. Similarly, it's impossible to place when Ichor of Two Dragons takes place during the game plot line, since in the game story Dan Heng only gets together with the rest of the party to fight Phantylia, then they immediately leave 鳞渊境 with an unconscious Jing Yuan in tow. There's basically no time during this for him to reminisce about the past.

So at least for these two PVs, it's heavily vibes based and metaphorical. Any literal reading would simply result in way, way too many contradictions. In A Flash, the general message is that despite Jing Yuan losing basically everyone that mattered to him, he puts the pain behind him and faces the future without letting the past crush him. In Ichor of Two Dragons, Dan Heng overcomes the memory fragments he inherited from Dan Feng to make new friends and find a new family that knows him as only Dan Heng.

(The fact that this completely kills the JY/DH ship is another matter altogether. I'm honestly surprised how much miHoYo keeps trying to push this pseudo-bait when they keep sinking the ship over and over.)

(Parenthetical 2: At this point, I think 凤求凤 is more appropriate to JY/DF ship than JY/DH ship, mostly because the plot points to a situation where all of JY's emotional connections to DH is carried over from his relationship with DF. Even if DH does reciprocate at some point, JY himself doesn't see DH as a close friend. He's seeing "offspring of my friend DF" in DH. JY's protective feelings over DH is because he sees him as an unfortunate victim of the Sedition, not because he sees DH as a person on whom he can actually rely. I know he said a few lines about how they still can read each other and he's trusting DH to watch his back, but he's basically talking to a ghost the whole time, which DH clearly sees and doesn't like. This is especially the case in 2.4 story when JY starts treating DH as his own person instead of an extension of DF, at which point he's significantly more reserved.)

(Parenthetical 3: I still haven't found anything that clarifies Jing Yuan is the youngest of the Quintet nor any indication that Dan Feng and Jingliu were old friends prior to her taking on a disciple. All I have is confirmation that Yingxing was shorter than Jingliu's sword when they first met. Which, again, doesn't tell us anything about their ages. I don't understand why people cite this patch as proof of Jing Yuan being youngest. What the hell am I missing?)

...and more thoughts on how to read certain lines

I'm trying to figure out why Blade is so popular, but also I realized that a huge driver behind the Blade/Dan Heng ship is because of this line from Jingliu:

“我们几人中，要说谁和他走得最近，那只能是你。”

【【星穹铁道】镜流同行「云无留迹」全剧情流程】 【精准空降到 26:19】

The "you" here refers to Dan Feng/Imbibitor Lunae.

I think a lot of fans take this to mean Dan Feng is the closest to Yingxing, but that's ignoring the order of the pronouns. What Jing Liu is saying is that Yingxing is an arrogant little shit and of the four friends, he grew the closest to Imbibitor Lunae. What this sentence does not imply is that the person closest to Imbibitor Lunae out of the Quintet is Yingxing.

It is still entirely possible that the person closest to Imbibitor Lunae was...someone else. I don't think I need to clarify whom I would like that to be.

Shipping goggles off, I do think that Dan Feng and Jingliu were probably not old friends, since Jingliu accused Dan Feng of failing to understand her, Jing Yuan, and Baiheng's feelings when it came to dying in battle. This greatly suggests that Jingliu, Jing Yuan, and Baiheng have far more front-line experience than Dan Feng (and we already have confirmation that Yingxing was never on the front-lines). It also suggests that Dan Feng went off to revive Baiheng knowing Jingliu and Jing Yuan wouldn't approve. Baiheng's ghost doesn't approve either. Meanwhile, the civilian Yingxing was far less accepting of a "noble death in the battlefield", so it makes sense why he was the one Dan Feng turned to for help.

In short, I don't think Dan Feng and Yingxing going off to do taboo revival experimentation has anything to do with them having the closest relationship, and everything to do with them being the only two who couldn't accept their friend's sacrifice.

Shipping goggles back on, I do think it's relevant that Jing Yuan is the only one who has been shown to call Dan Feng by his name rather than Imbibitor Lunae. Now granted, Baiheng was joking around, Yingxing was mocking the title, Blade and Jing Liu intentionally use the title to make a point to Dan Heng that they don't see him as anything but the continuation of Imbibitor Lunae. Nonetheless, it's very ship-worthy that Jing Yuan always calls Dan Feng (and Dan Heng) by name rather than using the Imbibitor Lunae title. This suggests that he has a very casual, accommodating, and definitely equal relationship with Dan Feng. Jing Yuan also seems to be the person most considerate of the angst that every incarnation of Imbibitor Lunae is burdened with memory fragments of their past selves. And my shipping brain chooses the headcanon that Jing Yuan intentionally avoids the title out of respect for each incarnation's personality and treats them as different people. Which is why he apologizes for overstepping when he failed to do that with Dan Heng initially.

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Also, at this point, I'm starting to get tired of trying to find evidence of the Quintet's relative ages. Fandom has collectively decided that Jing Yuan is the youngest. However, since we never hear Baiheng refer to Dan Feng as anything other than 饮月君 or 龙尊大人, I'm going to assume Baiheng is actually younger than Dan Feng, hence the polite speech. Based on that logic, Jing Yuan is probably of a similar age as Dan Feng. Meanwhile, we know Yingxing met Jing Liu as a very young child (no taller than her sword), but also that upon first meeting, the two were not friends and Jing Liu always felt Yingxing was too arrogant. So it's likely that Yingxing is actually the youngest of the group and acted out a lot, while the older people kind of...well, tolerated his arrogance due to him being young.

Ergo, the order of ages is something like this:
镜流 >>> 丹枫 ≈ 景元 > 白珩 >>> 应星

Since we know Baiheng was a Nameless traveler on the express earlier in life and she wrote at least one book documenting her adventures, and the median lifespan for Foxians is 307, it's reasonable to assume she settled down in Luofu after growing out of her "adventuring" phase. Assuming a linear conversion rate, 200-years-old is a pretty decent time to "retire" from adventuring, given she would've spent close to 2/3 of her lifespan doing what she wanted. (Assuming 84 is the expected human lifespan, the equivalent human age is ~56yo, which, trivia moment, is just past the retirement age for women in China.) So, I would place Baiheng's age somewhere between 150-200 years old at the time of Quintet becoming a thing. At the time of Sedition, Baiheng likely has passed 200-years-old, but nowhere near 307. If Baiheng had been close to the median life expectancy of Foxians, I doubt Dan Feng would've tried to bring her back to life, seeing as she would've lived a pretty full life.

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Finally, I think this is the moment Jing Yuan fully emotionally accepted Dan Heng as someone with no connections to the Quintet. I think he's always known it on an intellectual level, but this is the moment he's accepted the loss emotionally. The voice acting here is the coldest, most distant, I've ever heard Jing Yuan utter. Not only is he curt, his words are also accusatory(“我想你也该离开了” aka "It's about time you left already"). It's almost like he's saying Dan Heng has nothing to do with this and it's time for him to stop hanging around a place that holds special emotional importance for Jing Yuan. Dan Heng is, at this moment, an intruder on an old memory.

I mean, granted, I also think Dan Heng is a fucking idiot to angst over his identity and be like "I should go" when the man he's talking to is obviously emotionally distraught. I imagine had this been Dan Feng, he would've said something to soothe Jing Yuan's angst, but since Dan Heng has no words of comfort, Jing Yuan in this moment gave up hoping for any kind of emotional support from the guy. And consequently, this ship is sunk.

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I just want an AU where Jing Yuan gets a happy ending. o(TヘTo)