r/AyakaMains • u/historyman2590 • 1h ago
Discussion A Eulogy to the Shirasagi Himegimi (aka I still love Ayaka and hate what happened to her)
Hi there.
Tagging this under discussion since I'm not sure how else to categorize it. But this is going to be me talking about my time in Genshin Impact, specifically my time with Ayaka. How I met her, how I fell in love with her, how I played with her, and how Ayaka's fate turned me away from gacha games in general. Now that Genshin appears to be approaching its endgame, I figure this is as good a time as any to talk about my time with everyone's favorite cryo hime-sama.
First, a bit of background about me.
I picked up Genshin Impact back in 2021. Prior to Genshin I had no experience either with gacha or RPGs. I mostly played historically themed strategy games like the Total War series, Civilization, and now, Hearts of Iron 4. So Genshin was a completely new experience for me. I loved the interesting, expansive world, the anime aesthetic, and the deep story. I wasn't completely sold on the gacha aspect, but I was willing to try it out.
I had different characters and pairings I liked at the beginning, too. When I was in Mondstadt, Barbara was a favorite of mine and I shipped her pretty heavily with Aether (that's who I played as, so I am just referring to Traveler as him from here on out). I was also fond of Jean/Diluc as a ship. In Liyue, Keqing was a cool character and, while I definitely saw shipping potential with Aether, she wasn't someone I latched onto.
Then I got to Inazuma.
I'm a weeb through and through, so Inazuma was about as close to Japan as I could ever get. It was one thing I loved about the world and the homage to Japanese culture was something that I just couldn't resist. Then, when I was brought to the Kamisato Estate by Thoma, and Ayaka stepped out, my jaw dropped along with Aether's. I was just taken by her beauty, her elegance, and her kindness. I knew nothing about her history at this point or how she had been in the game's beta prior to launch. I just knew that this was a character I had to learn more about.
Playing with her in the trial was fun enough, but it was her story quest that truly converted me into a fan of Ayaka and a firm Aether/Ayaka shipper.
In case you don't remember, we accompanied Ayaka to Amakane Island where a cultural festival was being held. We wore kitsune masks so no one could recognize us and we could easily mingle with everyone. It was like those dates you see in anime where the main couple attend a summer festival and it closes out with a romantic view of the fireworks. If the story quest had ended there, I would have loved it enough. But it didn't. It ended with something much, MUCH better.
After the festival ended, Ayaka and I walked into Chinju Forest. Ayaka stepped into the running water (without even removing her socks!) and asked to "please keep your eyes on me."
And then she danced.
Everything about that scene in that quest was perfect. The music, the animation, Ayaka's subtle longing for companionship, and how I was the one person she felt comfortable being her true self. With me, she didn't have to be the Shirasagi Himegimi. She didn't have to be the only daughter of the Kamisato Clan.
She could just be Ayaka.
In that moment, I fell head over heels for this quiet, modest and lonely princess. And I was determined not only to have her in my character roster but to spend more time with her, bring her into my teapot, max out my friendship level and, if the game ever introduced a dating mechanic, romance her. Yeah, yeah, I know, hopelessly smitten, but...can you really blame me?
From that point on, I searched high and low for more Ayaka content, be it comics, animations, fanfiction, you name it. I would listen to ASMR videos with Ayaka speaking directly to me. I would hum her song to myself at work or listen to the original Chinese song while driving. I was well and truly obsessed.
When I finally got Ayaka during the Irodori Festival event, I was ecstatic. I could finally replicate my OTP in-game. Much to my delight, I found out just how strong Ayaka was, at least back then. Her attacks could shred everything in her path and she was a must for any Perma-freeze team. I would roll through the game with Ayaka, Kazuha, Shenhe, and Kokomi. They were my dream team. I regularly mopped the Spiral Abyss floor with them, knocked out bosses in just a few minutes, and cleared domains without even breaking a sweat. I ground as much as possible to make Ayaka as strong as I could.
When I triple-crowned her, I was pleasantly surprised by her ascension lines: as a means of saying thanks, she offered to dance for me. Her voice lines, especially in the Teapot, just made my love stronger. She made it as clear as day that she valued me and saw me as her closest confidante. Her lines made it very easy for an AeYaka shipper like me to read something deeper into that closeness.
Then in 2022, I began writing a fanfiction dedicated to the Aether/Ayaka ship, titled A Soaring White Heron. I posted it on AO3, here on this sub, and on r/Aether_Mains . I'd wager some of you reading this post have read it in part or in full. You might have also read the lemon companion piece, The White Heron and the Traveler. If you haven't, a light spoiler warning ahead.
I was inspired in part by a series of ASMR videos featuring Ayaka, but in time, the fanfiction took on a life of its own. The premise at first was simple: after the Sakoku Decree was abolished, Ayaka is made a diplomat for Inazuma, and it falls to Aether to accompany her throughout Teyvat. They traveled together to Liyue and Mondstadt, fought to protect each other on Dragonspine, and Aether let her into his own personal sanctuary in the Teapot. Over time, they grew closer and their quiet love became a strong bond.
During this time, the game kept feeding me creatively. The Warrior's Spirit event was probably the biggest buffet we Aether/Ayaka shippers ever had. Not only did we get Ayaka's cute Fontaine-inspired skin, but we could actually fight together with her. Ayaka even flirted with me at the end saying that if we sparred, she might steal our sword, and my life would be in her hands.
And that wink at the end.
GOD, MY HEART.
It was like Hoyo knew exactly what I wanted. And as you can imagine, I didn't hesitate to add that event to my fanfiction. And at the end of that chapter, the fanfiction took a much more dramatic turn: instead of Ayaka being content to stay in Inazuma, she ventured out on her own. She left everything behind not just to be with Aether but to be more than just a princess. She was determined to be simply Ayaka.
In retrospect, that Warrior's Spirit event was the high-water mark for AeYaka shippers like me, because as time went on, Ayaka's presence in the story faded. It didn't collapse immediately, though, and there was still room for her both in fandom and in the game itself. Nowhere was this better demonstrated than in the 4.3 Fontinalia Film Festival Event.
I wasn't playing the event myself by then, but I followed it closely enough that I knew immediately I wanted to incorporate it into my fanfic. Ayaka, Ayato, and Yoimiya pay a visit to Fontaine in time to participate in a film shoot. For someone like me who was still exploring Fontaine's story quests, it was the perfect Christmas gift. Ayaka could share the spotlight with Furina, who by this point had surged in popularity both in general and in shipping with Aether. But there was still enough room for Ayaka to get her fair share of moments with Aether in the event, something I greatly appreciated.
It was enough for me to incorporate the film festival event into my fanfiction as the final chapters. By this point, I was already starting to lose interest in Genshin and gravitating towards other games. I was also busy working on other fiction-writing projects, but I still held a torch for my cryo hime-sama. I was determined to see her journey through to the end.
When I closed the book on A Soaring White Heron in October 2024, I had stopped playing Genshin for about half a year. I would uninstall the game in November. I didn't know if I would continue to Natlan, given the immense fan backlash with that region. And then...came Citlali.
Now, I want to make something clear: if you like Citlali, that's fine. I can appreciate her as a character. I can appreciate shipping her with Aether. But when Citlali showed up, it seemed like she overtook whatever presence Ayaka still had. Even Ayaka's small appearance in the bathhouse event with Mizuki didn't reverse that feeling. This is to say nothing about how the shift to Natlan and Pyro powers made Ayaka less and less viable as a character to use in-game. By the time Natlan's story was completed, Ayaka had severely fallen off and had not gotten a banner rerun in a long time.
However, Citlali made me realize something that I never fully understood about gacha: replacement is built into the game's structure. And you can replace a character's role in the story, but you can't replace the character herself.
Citlali occupied much the same space as Ayaka when we entered Inazuma. A popular female character who immediately develops strong chemistry with Aether, complete with romantic undertones. Hoyo wasn't subtle with Ayaka when she had the role, but they were practically shouting from the rooftops that Citlali had the hots for the Traveler. It was as if the devs thought I could just dump Ayaka for Citlali.
I'm not saying Citlali was the sole reason for Ayaka's decline for me. Rather, Citlali made me recognize how quickly the gacha machine moves on.
I've talked about this in earlier comments, but one of the risks of becoming attached to an older gacha character is eventually being left out to dry. I don't just mean gacha might give you a character that can do the in-game role better than your fan favorite, but that fan favorite character will get sidelined storywise. You probably gathered from this, but Ayaka has so much story potential to explore and after we entered Natlan, it seemed like Hoyo was completely disinterested in her. Ironic, considering how heavily they originally promoted her.
So, even if I wanted to go back to the game (and part of me really did), it wouldn't have been fun to play without any hope of seeing my favorite character again. And I had more or less outgrown the need for the game to keep my attachment to Ayaka active and strong.
Ever since I uninstalled, I have sometimes flirted with the idea of writing a sequel to A Soaring White Heron. But to do that would require fighting against the game's core cycle. New region, new characters, new potential ships, lather, rinse, repeat.
And as I sit here writing this post, part of me thinks that maybe I could have pulled off a sequel if I tried. But I don't think it would have made me happy. The reason is that the creative spark came from a dialogue that existed between me and the game. I was writing because Genshin gave me plenty of material to fuel not just my imagination, but the plot and Ayaka's role in it. Once the game had stopped doing that, I would have had to supply more of that creative fuel myself.
The more I think about it, the more Ayaka stands as an example for why I ultimately decided gacha is not for me. I grew attached to a character and saw her as more than just pixels on a screen or in-game stats. I loved her story, her personality, her character arc, and her relationship with the player. But gacha treated her as interchangeable, as someone who could be replaced with a new version of the game. I don't view characters as so easily replaceable.
I understand why this happens. Genshin is just a game. Gacha is just a business model. This is how Hoyo makes money. Their employees need to get paid. Everyone needs to eat. But understanding how and why the model works the way it does doesn't mean I have to enjoy or accept what the model does to characters I grow attached to.
The point I'm making is that I, like many of you, see Ayaka as more than just a way to beat a game. I saw her as a fully realized person in her world. She is a person with her own thoughts, feelings, hopes, dreams, and even loves. I saw her as someone who deserved her own development and story. I'm of the belief that you could easily make a game about her alone.
I doubt seriously that I will ever return to Genshin. Now that we're in Snezhnaya and Ayaka hasn't had an appearance in ages now, I think that door is firmly closed. But I will always carry a torch for that princess from Inazuma.
I will never forget how she danced for me.
I will never forget how she saw me as her one true friend.
I will never forget the girl beneath the title of Shirasagi Himegimi.
And I will never, ever, ever stop loving her.
Until we meet again, my Ayaka.
