#luowelt

Because first you have the shock of actually finding Welt again after he's been kidnapped like 20 thousand times at this point, but then you add on the realization that he's dating the box your grandfather (your DEAD grandfather!) kept in his basement and/or actually just your grandfather in a different font.

And remember! Void Archives is the main reason Welt is in space in the first place. They took over a city! They committed intergalactic espionage! They did war crimes! War crimes that personal hurt people Theresa cared about.

(Didn't help that they also pretended to her grandfather for like a solid week and half, so that was also stressful).

And Luocha isn't innocent either. He committed actual terrorism. Kind of. Not sure. Honkai Star has overly complicated this subject.

Moving on.

This would also kind of make Welt Theresa's grandfather, which is hilarious because they are not that far apart in age, all things considered.

Like yeah, Tesla would probably immediately start threatening to throw people into her nuclear reactor again and Eins would probably send a drone/Coralie/Joffrey to spy on them, but this is funnier. Its like if you find out your teacher one of your parents. Emotional damage to the max.

Like it would go something like:

Theresa (Verge of exploding): WHY?!

Welt: (Turns)

(Behind Welt, Void Archives smiles like a maniac and/or Luocha smiles pleasantly, but his coffin is glowing ominously next to him)

Welt: I'm not perfectly sure either if I'm being honest.

In conclusion: Welt has horrible taste, but we all love him for it.

Bonus:

-Amber proceeds to just straight up threaten to castrate Welt and no one believe him because. Come on. It's Amber.

-Sushang thinks this is hilarious.

-Everyone from APHO tries to stab, punch, or maim Void Archives at some point. Mostly Adam.

Propaganda:

Welt & Luocha

welt has travelled across universes where different worlds can have different versions of the same people, so the second he sees luocha, he isn’t just seeing some random polite merchant with a coffin - he’s seeing this universe’s version of otto apocalypse, one of his enemies from another world, and also someone who looks like void archives, his companion he used to travel with before the events of star rail. complete with gay montage flashback.

it makes their dynamic tense in a really good way. luocha is calm, charming, helpful, and very obviously hiding things. welt is careful, experienced, and immediately suspicious because he has too much history with that face. he doesn’t know whether luocha is dangerous in the same way otto and void archives were, but he also can’t look at him without that history showing up.

i’d have loved them as a slow-burn thing where welt has to deal with the fact that luocha is his own person, while luocha has to deal with being watched by someone who knows versions of him he’s never been. it’s awkward, unfair, interesting, and exactly the kind of cross-universe baggage i want in a honkai ship.

Noel & Hope

Hope is the mind and logos and science to Noel’s heart and pathos and passion. Hope has grown into this calm, brilliant Academy director who deals in research, strategy, paradox theory, and giant long-term survival plans. Noel is all instinct, grief, urgency, and stubborn faith. He’s from the future Hope is trying to prevent, which makes their dynamic feel personal in a way it wouldn’t with anyone else. Because to Hope, the future is a theory until Noel walks in. Noel is living proof of what happens if they fail. And to Noel, Hope isn’t just some scientist in a lab coat giving exposition, he’s one of the few people who might actually be able to stop the world from becoming the wasteland Noel remembers.

That’s romantic to me, sorry. The guy who knows the end of the world and the guy trying to outthink it. Hunter and scientist. Last human and future-builder. They should’ve kissed in Academia.