#hsr rambles

(the gentle scholar who's completely smitten for you: soft/fluffy Veritas Ratio relationship HCs)

AN: the brainrot is hard with this one boys. Think of this as a pre-hc post before I post the Reca fic that I have yet to write the ending for. Also possibly ooc TT? IDC JUST GIVE ME SOFT DOWN BAD MEN.

The gentle scholar to your dismay has always been an early riser. Making it a habit to wake up before you and running through his morning routine like clockwork. You're not even surprised when you awake to the other side of the bed completely empty but the aroma of the breakfast he makes for you instantly draws your attention away from the lack of body heat (or lack of a body in general). Despite you constantly waking up cold you're always greeted by a warm delicious breakfast, a cup of coffee brewed just the way you like it, and him freshly showered and smelling of cedarwood and mint. He always makes it a point to eat breakfast with you (if he's not busy that is). Occasionally you'd try to wake up early with him, setting an alarm beforehand with the most obnoxious sounds to get you to wake up. Usually it doesn't work, waking up almost everyone in the entire galaxy except you. Unless you requested for him to specifically wake you up at this time, he'll always let you sleep in and let you wake up on your own accord. He finds your resting state oddly endearing and would often spend the first five minutes of his morning routine just admiring you.

He has found out that the most effective way to wake you up is through the simple act of kissing your forehead, something he does everyday without fail. It doesn't matter if you're sick or mad at him, he'll still do it. It starts with a small peck, then a press of his own forehead against your own, then a small murmur of ‘good morning’ before one last chaste kiss to the skin between your eyes.

Coffee in the morning was a sacred time for you both. He has your preferences mastered and takes his time to make it according to your taste. He brews the coffee first before going to wake you up so that they'd have time to cool down and so that you'd wake up to the scent of freshly grounded coffee beans (which he knows you love)

He ironically likes matcha (though he still prefers coffee more) and gets offended whenever you label it as 'sweet grass water', that leads to you both getting into a 20 minute debate over whether or not it is worth the hype. He's dead serious. So are you.

He will never leave the apartment without saying goodbye to you. It's either verbally or through the form of a sticky note saying 'see you tonight my love'.

He is genuinely interested and often invested in your interests. Being with a man who values knowledge has its ups, whenever you find a new thing to obsess about you immediately have a person by your corner who's willing to listen to all your rambles. He'd definitely educate himself on the matter as well and help you do deep dives and research about it (it's both of your past times). He likes it because it makes you happy and because it's technically something new to learn about. He loves finding new topics to talk to you about and he always wants to make sure he's intellectual enough to actively engage in a proper conversation with you.

PLANS. OUT. YOUR. DATES. (IDC WHAT Y'ALL SAY) he will be the type to have memorized all your favorite places, where to take you when you're craving something savory, where to take you when you're feeling depressed. He does the work and probably has a physical copy of all the fun places he could take you on depending on your mood. Now he can easily figure out what places you'd want to try out and which ones to actively avoid.

He is the epitome of self-care (BRO HAS A LITERAL LIGHTCONE WHERE HES IN A BUBBLE BATH) you both have days where you just soak in a bubble bath with him reading a book and you relaxing against him, occasionally he'd read to you. Face masks? Yes. Nail care? Sure why not? He loves doing self care things with you (or just spending time with you in general, the soft skin is a bonus)

Would often gift you novels or books that he knows you'll enjoy. You'll be pleasantly surprised to see his handwriting on the margin because he had annotated it beforehand, and to your dismay he will quiz for fun on the book from time to time to test if you actually read it (you always do.)

He's not big on matching clothing but would get matching jewelery, he doesn't wanna hide that he's obsessed with you but he doesn't want to flex or show you off like you are some kind of object. He would get you both matching rings, matching bracelets, matching necklaces, and will always wear them without fail. He's usually subtle about it but whenever anyone asks him about them he'd answer you.

He ironically likes calling you pet names darling, love, idiot (endearingly), but he loves your name, he's probably the type to know the meaning behind your name as well.

Dating him is not spoiler free unfortunately, he will accidentally spoil the end of a movie or book because he's already read the reviews of it online, and has watched the analysis of it before watching it with you.

Also will commentate on the movie: "that's dumb why didn't she just-"

LOVES TO ARGUE WITH YOU, he doesn't care if you're degrading him in the most foul way. He will relish you getting angry and starting fights.

HE WILL. NEVER. RAISE HIS VOICE AT YOU. it'll always be that stupidly calm yet smug one, he is a firm believer in the 'loudest voice doesn't mean you win the argument' idea and he goes by that a lot. He can be condescending however, the type that makes you want to punch his stupid face.

"such unfortunate language. only those who cannot express themselves intelligently would resort to such crude substitutions in vocabulary" — Ratio at some point (he was losing the argument)

Begrudgingly allowed you to paint on his white alabaster sculpture that he sometimes wears, there's a trace of you everywhere on him, the design changes from time to time. He probably made you one as well.

He keeps all the gifts and letters you give him in a special box and has a picture of you on his person every time.

He probably has tabs on everything, the date of your first kiss, the date of your first date, your favorite color. It's all inside a little notebook.

Doesn't even need to say I love you because his eyes say it all, he looks at you as if you had placed all the stars in the sky. it's a subtle look but over the time you were able to identify it.

march is the obvious resident amnesiac, who can't remember anything at all but wants to find out so so bad. she tries to know and is stopped by other people against her will and she's so scared she'll forget her current life too she has an entire hobby centered around it.

dan heng knows all about his past life but only through other people talking, and he only gets brief flashes of actual memories here and there and he hates it. he is trying his best to run and distance himself from that life and the person he was and it's not working nearly as well as he'd like.

trailblazer is similar to march, but unlike her they seem entirely uninterested in their past for like the majority of the game. when they see a previously forgotten memory in amphoreus, their first instinct is to be surprised that there are things they don't remember, and they attempt to deny it, instead of being excited or curious at all. trailblazer really woke up only knowing their own name and kafka and went 'that seems like enough' sdhsksjsk

_____

Does anyone think about how he felt when possessed what was going through his head, he loves fighting sure but how do you think he felt when he almost drew his sword on Jing Yuan, The General his dad. How do you think he felt when he had to sit at the dinner table that night and couldn't look The General in the eyes because all that was replaying in his head was the fact that he almost fought him. Maybe he was thinking about how he'd have to kill Jing Yuan one day when he's mara-struck. Maybe that was something he'd never thought of before until that moment.

Maybe in that moment he instead of teetering on the edge of human and weapon his brain finally titled over into that mindset of being a weapon

[[LONG POST BELOW! NOT A SHIP POST! But if you're a shipper... Take what resonates, leave what doesn't.]]

I wonder if anyone has ever made a post about this before, but I like to see Mydei and Phainon as something like parallels.

As a character in-game, I have enjoyed her contribution so far. She’s a fun, cute yet tragic character integral to the lore, not all that dissimilar form Phainon but still distinctly her own person. But unfortunately, I do agree with the discourse in regard to her playable character. It leaves a lot to be desired.

To clarify, I don’t think Cyrene’s playable model is poorly designed. No, it’s a nice design that seems to be well thought out, taking inspiration from the likes of HI3’s Elysia while also forming a new design. The model is nice, aesthetic even, but it isn’t Cyrene. Or at least, it doesn’t feel like it. There’s a jarring disconnect between the Cyrene we’ve seen so far VS the Cyrene Hoyoverse is trying to sell to us, and I think that’s where the core problem lies.

For reference, here are the two models side by side. It can’t be denied that they do look plausibly related. If you told someone who doesn’t play HSR that these are the same character, they’d probably believe you. But for those who are familiar with Cyrene’s NPC form, with her storyteller and time-related themes, it stops being believable. They share similar hair and colour schemes, and yet Cyrene’s new model shares none of the themes that have been previously integral to her character. Instead, she seems to be a combination of March 7th and Elysia, yet retains neither of the features that make those two characters likeable or interesting.

Perhaps this would be fine if it could be reasonably explained. If Cyrene’s first form were simply a younger version of her, perhaps the audience could believe that her fashion sense and other aspects of her life have simply changed. But at no point are we led to believe that smaller Cyrene is some younger past version. In fact, it is greatly implied that her original form is that of an adult, considering we see her live past her youth in the reset cycle with the same model. They are the exact same age, same character, and yet so fundamentally different. Even with their faces side by side pulling a very similar expression, it doesn’t feel like the same character to me.

I wont even go in-depth her kit either, because it’s been spoken about to death. My opinion on the matter is that it isn’t great, but it isn’t as bad as some people make it out to be. But overall, Cyrene isn’t a successful character to market. In fact, it almost seems like Hoyoverse knows that their audience will be dissatisfied. They’re releasing a skin for her weapon to encourage players to actually pull for her, also allowing them to earn more money from the fewer people who will pull for her. Not to mention her banner is set to run for the whole update as opposed to the usual first or second phase, leaving people longer to decide to pull for her after theyve pulled the other more desirable characters. Hoyoverse knows they’re marketing an unmarketable product, but they’re attempting to gloss over it with aesthetics to meet their desired quota of income per banner.

But moving on from her design. I can’t speak for the other members of the community that are disappointed with playable Cyrene, but at least to me it isn’t solely about her design. I could easily overlook its flaws if it were still the same Cyrene we’ve come to know and love. But it isn’t, and therein lies the other issue I have: Cyrene’s writing has taken a shift. As of this post, version 3.7 isn’t available yet. So I can’t speak for how the Trailblaze missions will actually characterise Cyrene, but there seems to be a stark difference in the teasers she’s featured in since her playable model’s drip marketing. In-game, Cyrene has been an upbeat, optimistic girl bordering on gullible with her intense desire to protect humanity- Including Phainon, by the way. Especially Phainon- Yet we see none of this in her teasers.

In the teasers, Cyrene is still positive. But now her personality seems to revolve around the Trailblazer. They have become close in the storyline, true. Both Phainon and Cyrene have waited for cycles upon cycles for the Astral Express’ arrival, so it’s natural they’d be close with the Trailblazer, but their characterisation of this is very different. Phainon bonded with the Trailblazer, but his motivation ultimately remains to be saving all of the Chrysos Heirs. It’s worth noting that he seemed to bond with Dan Heng too as part of the Astral Express crew, at least enough to emerge from his self-imposed seal to assist his journey. Cyrene, however, has been portrayed in her teasers as caring solely for the Trailblazer. Her close bond with Phainon, her childhood friend and motivation for delaying Era Nova, doesn’t even make a notable feature. Hell, none of the other Chrysos Heirs do. They appear briefly in one of her teasers, but are characterised as an aspect of a story she’s telling as opposed to people she has grown to care for through cycles of longing observation. The characters that are so integral to her essence as a person are reduced to almost nothing in favour of a romantic story, a one-off line that shouldn’t really be as important to her character as they’ve decided to make it.

And on top of all of this, she apparently seems to harbours some sort of desire to join the Astral Express crew? Since when? The way they’ve portrayed Cyrene in the short amount of time in her teasers makes her appear shallow, at least in my opinion. They’ve erased her interesting traits and motivations, her grim determination to remain hopeful despite her circumstances, in favour of acting out of love for the Trailblazer.

Headcanon in nature. Probably OOC.