skyward sonnet

Well, hello again!

This is probably my last post until I'm done with finals. Sadly I don't think I'll be able to play the new Mondstadt AQ before this phase ends, which is kind of a bummer but at least it's permanent, so I'll get to playing it in the end.

On the topic of Genshin itself, I actually lost my 50/50 to Dehya the other day while pulling for Navia, which... oops. My partner did tell me not to pull so much on her banner, but to be completely honest I wasn't really upset either, as I've won many 50/50s on a row and I still have plenty of wishes left. I think I'll just keep saving until a character I want debuts or gets their re-run, it's completely cool with me.

I actually haven't been playing Genshin that much as of lately, but it is interesting to think back and realise it's almost been a full year since I started playing. It definitely doesn't feel like it's been that long, but that's probably because I've taken a huge break lately. And thinking back on it, I don't think I enjoyed Natlan all that much, but I feel like the exploration gimmicks are largely at fault here as well as the community, which I've tried to avoid as much as possible anyway, but I do have to say it's quite annoying trying to go on the Internet to see what people think of a game and see people solely focus on powerscaling and whatnot. I don't care if I can't full-star the Abyss, I just want to play as my favourite characters. Though I guess that's to be expected with a game with a fanbase as big as Genshin's, so no big deal, really.

In general, it seems to me that lately everything is no big deal for some reason. Considering it's finals season for me, that's quite ironic, but I really do feel like these exams aren't that big of a deal. I think my first year of university has been a really complete experience, both in the good and in the bad sense, but it's all come down to this sense of peace that everything's gonna go well now, so I can't really complain about that LOL.

I really can't wait for summer as a whole. The weather keeps getting warmer and warmer and it really feels like it's already summer. Only a few more exams to go and I'll be free!

Hello everyone, it's been a while! I got busy with finals and then I simply didn't know what to post about... I'm still working out that one Wanderer and Ei post in my mind. Unfortunately I have classes again as well as some other stuff to do, so I haven't been playing that much Genshin.

That being said, I did play through the whole Lantern Rite! And finished the story about 2 hours before the event ended. Thankfully, I had half of it already done so I didn't have to rush it, and oh man I have a lot of thoughts about it. This was my first Lantern Rite, so obviously I was very excited to see everything - the characters in the overworld, the minigames, the story itself... I had a lot of fun overall! I bought myself some Lanterns as well. They're very pretty.

But obviously, what I have the most to say about is the event story quest. I've always liked Hu Tao, but I have to admit I haven't played her mission or anything so... it's not like I stopped liking her, but she kind of ''fell off my list'' in favour of other characters. However, this event definitely resparked my interest in her character. I'm glad I chose to finish the story, I think it really shows what kind of person she is and well, it's exactly my type of character LOL. Maybe not completely, but it's safe to say she's shot up in my character favourites list. Not so far as to consider her my Pyro fave though, that spot is reserved for Lyney!

Aside from that I thought the story was nice, but there was one thing I wish they'd done more with, and that's Lan Yan's character. I know that what sells, sells; money talks and whatnot, but I was so ready for Lan Yan to be behind some kind of conspiracy or... not necessarily evil thing, just not completely good? With all the figurines scattered around I was so sure that was the route they were going to take, and even though I liked her I was hoping for her to have some sort of twist like that. Not really a nitpick, just something I would've enjoyed more. I understand that making ''evil'' characters can be a dangerous move taking money into account, but idk man, I like variety.

Anyway! Overall it was a cool event, and as I said earlier this was my first Lantern Rite so I was very excited to see what it was all about. I finally got Xingqiu's C1 because he simply refuses to pull up to my account normally. I loved the minigames too, including the battle one which is surprising because I usually get my ass beat at those, but I actually thrived in this one!? My favourite one was the Electrocharged stage.

And speaking of Electro... I reached my first 100k damage with Raiden a few days ago! It's so, so cool to have finally reached that number, even if it was with my friend's supports' help. I'm very happy about it, can't wait to reach that number again!!

There's one thing I also can't wait for, and it's VENTI'S RERUN. In my entry last month I mentioned I still had to look at the 5.4 banners to see who I wanted, and I think it's safe to say I'm skipping this version too, lol. I haven't really pulled since Nahida in October, aside from one 10-pull on Hu Tao's banner and like, two wishes for Shenhe. I almost have enough for a guaranteed Venti, too (and that's not taking my pity count into account! If we combine both that and my wishes, I definitely have him guaranteed already). I don't mind not pulling because, well, I only pull for characters I like (that's the point of the game!), but I want to have him already.

And that's it for now, I think! Hopefully I'll be back to posting regularly. Life has been very good to me lately, but I've been so busy (with good things, thankfully!) that I almost completely forgot I had a blog. Now I'm getting busy with uni again, but I trust I'll still have some time to write every now and then. There's so much I want to write about.

Until next time!

I've played a lot of Genshin today since I finally decided to enter Enkanomiya, and man, it's been really fun so far. The puzzles during the quest at Watatsumi were surprisingly normal considering it's an Inazuma quest, and so far Enkanomiya has been the same.

I'm really enjoying the ominous atmopshere, but what I'm most interested in is, obviously, the lore. There's definitely something going on down there and I'm determined to find out what it is, lol. Also I know one of the Enkanomiya soundtracks is called ''something something Lethe'' (I found it by accident one day while studying a few months ago) and that's... concerning, to say the least! But that only makes it all the more interesting. I also really like the music, though I've only heard two tracks so far, one being the battle theme (or one of them? I assume there might be more in the future, idk) which is so good. I keep fighting random Hilichurls just to hear it again and again.

Regarding the quest, I have to say that I do not trust this Enjou guy at all! Where did he come from and why is he expecting me to do all the work for him if it's that important, huh? Something about him is off but I don't know what it is exactly. I have a feeling he's more than a scholar. After the Escher revelation I don't trust anyone in this game lol.

I'm super excited to keep playing the quest and I was going to play more (even though I definitely shouldn't have anyway because, like I said, I already played a lot today), but unfortunately my game crashed in the middle of some Enjou dialogue. It's not the first time that it's happened and I know that my laptop isn't the best for graphics-heavy games like Genshin, but man, I don't even have shadows, how is this lagging... I enjoyed my time there though, hopefully I'll be back there soon.

Enkanomiya aside I also ascended Furina today, but I couldn't get her to level 90 because I don't have enough EXP books yet. I also got to either 119 or 120 wishes, so that's great! I'll definitely have 180 by the time Venti reruns.

Last but not least, I wanted to post this picture I took of Ei standing before the Sangonomiya Shrine as I was playing this morning. I thought it was really pretty so I figured I'd share it!

This is a post I've been wanting to make for some time now and that I will most likely come back to in the future. The more I see, the more I feel the need to talk about... Genshin's use of Latin.

I am well aware that using Latin (and sometimes Ancient Greek too) really adds to a fantasy setting to the public eye. It's recognisable enough that people know something is in Latin, but not well-known to an extent most people will understand what it's saying at first glance because, well, who even speaks Latin? (And as a quick disclaimer, I do not speak Latin per se, but I do know enough to be like... well, that's not how this language works.) As beautiful as it is, it's not something many people study.

And that's how you end up with cases like Genshin's, where you get things that sound really cool until you read them twice, which is exactly what happened to me some time ago and why I wanted to talk about this topic. I'll be mostly focusing on the constellations but I'll also mention a few other things I noticed. This isn't meant as a big ''actually, none of you people have any idea about this''; I just want to explain what things are wrong and why. I understand that game developers aren't going to study Latin for years just to write one or two words about a character that not many people will pay attention to because, really, it's not like the constellation names are relevant in any way to the gameplay experience. Unless you're me lol.



On Constellations

To begin with, I have to say that although I've had my eye on this topic for a while now, I hadn't thought about the constellations names possibly being different in Chinese. I don't know Chinese, so I had to take the translations available in the Genshin Wiki as reference, but it really shocks me how much they changed some of them (and it's not just the English version that did this! I'll elaborate on this later.). For example, some of the constellations that refer to specific species of animals are completely different depending on the language. Take Mualani, whose constellation in Latin refers to a species of seal that isn't the same as the one in Chinese. I genuinely do not understand how this happened; if there's a logical explanation for this, someone please enlighten me in the comments.

There's also some cases where I think the adaptation is cool, but definitely gets lost in... not translation, but lost in ignorance, maybe? In the sense that they make sense, but are referencing things that probably aren't common knowledge and it makes me sad how most people will probably miss the reference. Such is the case with Alhaitham's constellation, Vultur Volans, which literally means ''Flying Vulture'', but was the name the Romans used to refer to Aquila, a real constellation in the night sky. Aquila means ''Eagle'', and the CN name for Alhaitham's constellation is, according to the wiki, ''Sky Falcon''. So it's clear what they were trying to convey there. It's such a cool detail, but sadly it's not something most people will catch. I do have to say that this specific case is explained in the Wiki page for his constellation, but still.

Then there are instances that are just like... that's not even Latin lol. Mona's constellation, Astrolabos, is Ancient Greek for ''astrolabe''; Eula's Aphros Delos is also in Greek; and some of them mix both Latin and Ancient Greek which is something that kind of bothers me but that's because I'm a nerd. Take Furina's Animula Choragi, which the Wiki translates as ''Little Soul of the Choregos'', a choregos being a term used to refer to someone who, put simply, leads a choir. This is something the Russian version of Genshin simplified as ''Kapellmeister'', a German word that I feel is much more explanatory than Animula Choragi.

Despite how complicated this name might sound, at least they used the Latin word derived from the Greek one, and taking declension into account, Animula Choragi perfectly translates to ''Little Soul of the Choregos'' — Animula is in Nominative and Choragi is in Genitive. As they should be. I'm not going to explain declension in detail right now but, well, that means they definitely kept this in mind with every constellation, right? ...Right?

Yeah, no, it's been months and I'm STILL confused about why Beidou's constellation is Victor Mare when it should be Victor Maris if they wanted it to mean ''Conqueror of the Sea'', like the Wiki suggests. Like yeah, Mare can be Ablative but WHY would you use Ablative when you can use Genitive. What were they trying to do there. It doesn't even have anything to do with her constellation's Chinese name so I have NO idea of what they were trying to say there. To me it just sounds like ''Conqueror Sea''. I could accept ''Conqueror in the Sea'' but like... why? Why would you make it sound like that?? What the hell is going on???

Not to mention the sudden changes between languages. I mentioned the case with the Russian TL of Furina's constellation earlier, but it's not just that. Mika's constellation Palumbus refers to a wood pigeon and is kept as Wood Pigeon in most languages, and then Italian decides to change it to Columba Silvae, which is Latin for ''Dove of the Woods'', but woods as in... a forest. Well, it can still mean wood, but why change it in the first place? Or Indonesian suddenly naming Wanderer's constellation Errabundus instead of Peregrinus, which is an ADJECTIVE that means wandering. Which is actually more accurate to Wanderer's name, because peregrinus is more like... a pilgrim, someone who's wandering but has a set destination — a beautiful detail, yes, but it's not true to Wanderer's name or story or anything and I just. I'm so confused. Who is naming these. The original Chinese means Vagrant according to the Wiki. What's happening here.

Other Inconsistencies

I also want to highlight their inconsistency with some words. I don't understand why Childe's constellation is Monoceros Caeli, ''caeli'' coming from ''caelum'' (''sky'' but specifically ''heaven''), and then the sudden switch in the soundtrack Polumnia Omnia where they say ''coelica'', derived from ''coelum'', which means the same but is in a more recent spelling instead of the Classical one. So I guess it's not... wrong, per se, but it's weird and confusing and I don't understand how they ended up doing that.

Edit 29/12/24: I can't believe I forgot to mention another inconsistency between translations! This one's about the use of singular and plural forms, most notably with "Fatui". You might've noticed the word "Fatuus" coming up sometimes instead of the other one; this is the singular of the word fatui. This is also the case of Gnosis (singular) vs. Gnoses (plural). Interestingly enough, the Spanish version of the game does not make a difference between these and always uses the plural form Fatui + the singular form Gnosis. I can't speak for any other Genshin versions as I've only played in those two languages, so unfortunately I don't know if this is an exception or if it happens more often.


I think I'm going to wrap up this post now, but as I mentioned at the beginning I will probably come back to this in the future to edit it. If there's anything I got wrong please do tell me in the comments! I'm really just very passionate about Latin and Ancient Greek and I had to type out my thoughts about everything because I have so much to say.

Also, I understand that this might come across as quite the technical post — I tried not to go too much into details, but I understand that I might have unintentionally done that so please let me know if I should explain anything.

Thank you so much for reading until the end, and see you next time!

I've been thinking about getting into HSR for a while now, but the gameplay doesn't appeal to me for a couple of reasons and I can't really play the game anyway... so I figured I could just read the story! Or, well, watch it. Yesterday I finally had some free time and dived right into it. So far I'm mostly extremely confused and I have no idea what's going on at all, but I'm having fun and I'm really excited to see what happens next! There's a few characters I already like even if I don't know much about them (Ratio, Robin, Sunday... and some others, but those three really speak to me lol), and so far I really like the cast too. Also Kafka is so pretty.

Some other stuff also caught my eyes, like the whole Aeons thing and the... sudden primum mobile mention? What was that about lol. I get it but it's also so surprising to see stuff I've studied in the games I play (or, well, read? my point stands either way). But then again that's also part of why I'm so interested in Ratio. He's a nerd down to the bathtub detail and I am also a nerd. I think it's funny how his name is literally just "Doctor Truth Reason", too.

Aside from that I've actually been playing a lot of Genshin! Well, I've played a lot these last few days at least. I've been mostly focusing on exploring when playing on my own and getting a lot of wishes, while also farming for my characters in co-op with my friend. I've been having terrible artifact luck but today I got two cool pieces so that's something at least! 

I've also been thinking a lot about Ei in general lately. I mentioned this in my most recent post but I have so much to say about her, she's one of my favourite characters and I wish she was more talked about. Maybe people did talk about her when she came out, but I wasn't there to see it and I really want to put my own analysis of her out there too. Specifically as someone who's a Wanderer main I see a lot of Ei hate which... I get where it comes from, but I really cannot agree. Deep down they have a lot of similarities that I want to explore, but that'll have to wait a little.

Gaming aside, I haven't done much today. I studied for my final tomorrow and that's about it. I wanted to draw or write too, but I've been stupidly art blocked, on top of the fact that I've barely had the time to do anything when I wasn't... Still, I want to see if I can finish something before the year ends. Hopefully next time I'll have better luck.

Long time no see! I had more free time today, so I decided to do a Genshin Ask Meme I just saw on another blog. Since it's quite long (32 questions!), I'll hide my answers under the cut so I don't clog my page. Here's a link to the questions!
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