#alrani

Genshin Impact | Cutscenes from Soulblazers' Snowbound Journey

yigang and alrani cracked me up and im willing to bet it's hyv's way of representing all us crazy fanfiction writers and artists and the lengths we can go just to bring our silly ideas to life with every fic and artwork.

Hísigní – First Instars

Log 1.

The main identifiable features of a young Hísigní are the many fat reserves on their bodies, which throughout their life recede and develop into a proper exoplate structure that protects all soft tissue inside. Some compare it to 'chitin', but its simply hardened skin that folds itself in such a way that makes their bodies look segmented.

The second are protective 'feathers' over their bodies which act as premature exoplates, especially over their head and backs. These 'feathers' either mature with age into harder and thinner 'hair tufts' or completely fall out leaving behind a fresh layer of plates coating the head akin to scales. Usually this is up to genetics or pure coincidence, but losing them can also happen from environmental variables and trauma as an act for the body to protect itself more. This can happen at any life stage.

Their thermoregulating system is also underdeveloped, and instead of clear structures with fans (feathers), they only so far have enlarged vents. This often poses a problem when thermoregulating and the children are looked after closely during extreme weather.

Their faces and facial structure also differs quite largely from an adult. Where instead of lips and inner teeth, they have outer 'beaks' which act as both lips and for tearing food. This beak loses its sharpness with age, and once proper exoplates form on their faces the beak chips off enough to look 'normal'. This causes adults to have varying lip shapes (as close to a human definition of 'lips' anyway.)

Their eyes are larger and ears wider with undeveloped lyriforms. To make up for the lack of a developed organ, young instars sport whiskers in places that fall out with age. Their crests are also only seen as nubs at this stage, and may grow into varying shapes depending on their class, environment, and local culture.

Hísigní - Thermoregulating System

Log. 2

The Hísigní don’t possess the ability to sweat and cool off their bodies, but they have a completely different system that controls body temperature. This system relies on both internal and external temperatures and water control/intake. They aren’t cold blooded creatures, yet they aren’t completely warm-blooded either, not to an Earthly standard anyway. Humans body temperature tends to be around 37C, while the Hísigní cap out at around 27-30C and the rest relies on external heat. Though not to be confused with how humanity feels external heat and cold, these creatures can withstand lower outside temperatures a little easier thanks to their densely packed muscle, mass, and thick exo-skin. However, intense external heat can become tricky to regulate depending on the subtype of the Hísigní.

Vents:

Located mainly on the thorax as small ventral slits leading directly into the thermoregulating internal structures and system. In the center of the thorax there are two main vents which are larger with open spots that are responsible for external heat detection. These vents have connected slits that become narrower alongside the ribcage and arm, and are situated between overlapping exo-plates. The vents are fleshy structures with no protection to them and are quite porous. Which is a large weakness point. While the minimum amount of vents is 2, the regular amount is 4 stretching from both the thorax and arms.

From the furthest point of the vents there stretch out the fans.

Fans:

These fans are feathery-like structures leading through and out the vents. These are directly responsible for thermoregulation and the water distribution system. They can retract or flare out depending on the external temperature. 

These structures look similar to feathers yet are smaller and much denser. The ‘quill’ is filled with water and the barbs act as smaller veins passing water from quill to quill while simultaneously interlocking their barbules together to stay attached. The outer side of the barbules have small pores responsible for pheromone secretion and ensuring the fans don’t completely dry out. The texture of the fans can be described as stiffer yet slick, unlike the fluffiness of down feathers which the fans resemble, and have a waxy feel to them. The fans are also more sensitive than a feather, as they contain nerves throughout.

These fans need to be kept clean and orderly, which the waxy secretions help with, but fraying is common with too-tight clothes or synthetic materials, which can lead to infection and problems thermoregulating from damage between the barbules. 

The fans flare out during hot weather, and retract during cold. This works similarly to humans, where keeping water outside of the body will help releasing heat, and holding the water inside the body will keep a constant temperature.

regarding Sumeru and “mommy dommes” (October 2022)

In a previous post I joked that “Sumeru has a dire shortage of mommy dommes”.

At the time [1], this was a light-hearted reference to Alrani's Sumeru quest, where—spoilers for The Path of Papers—Alrani responded to academic stress+burnout by paying a Treasure Hoarder [2] to lock her in a cage as an escape from her immediate stresses.

In a reblog for the original post I suggested that many characters would happily provide this service for free [3].

Now, I stand by the plausibility of my assessment headcanon that Alrani is sublimating a captivity kink.

However, by saying that Sumeru didn't have any equivalent characters, and blaming it on the Akasha system, I committed the East-centric fallacy of discounting the western reaches of the Land of Wisdom.

This was Candace (Genshin Impact) erasure, and I deeply regret my words.

I'm sorry, Candace. And I'm sorry, Alrani thirst Tumblr. I hope you can one day forgive me.

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[1] 2022/09/19, nine days before v2.2 released

[2] Narzam deserves her own quest