Welcome!!

This is just a simple shrine dedicated to one silly old guy from Genshin Impact under the name of Zhongli (yes he's C6, yes I run him on a phys DPS build out of spite). Although he wasn't the reason I began playing the game (I started upon release), he was the reason I fell completely for the game and found myself back into making a fandom OC.

For those that live too long, the friends of days gone by and scenes from their adventures live on in their memories. As such I have no regrets in meeting you, friend. Should the day ever come that we are not together, you will continue to shine like gold in my memories.

An old god who has been loyal to his people for many years, who has seen and lost so many friends, who has finally found the tiny push to retire after being lost in the cyclical, day-to-day motion of godhood for the past 2,000 years. How could I not fall for him?

He's such a goofy guy too!! Silly old man who finds a way to swindle free fans of himself and likes partaking in discussions (arguments) about the history of Rex Lapis as if he isn't the man himself. I'd like to believe that the people of Liyue either know it's him, or they know he's some adepti and are just being nice to not point it out when he's so trying to be 'just a guy'.

God knows I have many thoughts about him and his fandom portrayal

To be fair, in part of why I also got so attached to him was my absolute 'wtf' shock at how people portray him in the fandom; unironically I saw someone call him narcissistic with how he treats Xiao ... y'know, the guy he gets medicine for? Who he worries about? Who he wants to see indulging in living life? That's his peepaw!!

That or genuinely unfeeling / uncaring, he himself may have talked about having a heart of stone (considering he had to partake in a literal war), but his character is not any of those things. I dunno how people can portray him as unfeeling and cold and willing to use people, or harm them, but I've seen so many cases of fandom treating his past history as Morax, or even during the war era, as being ... abusive isn't the right word, but somewhere in that vein.

That's not to even get into the whole shipping conundrum but the Hoyoverse fandom at large is kind of atrocious with it. 'Alpha Daddy' Zhongli can explode for all I care about; that is a gentleman through and through (that or people use Guizhong as a shitty ship device). Anyway the fandom honestly made me feel so spiteful for how they treated him in ships that I made my own OC to ship with him.

'No Mora' and 'sugar daddy Childe' jokes are beaten to death, please stop. He may be a little cheeky when buying items (especially now that he can as his own person and with his own, not created, Mora), but yall can't tell me this man is perpetually poor and has a permanent lack of sense of spending.

TFW the reading comprehension of the fandom is so shit that you just adopt the canon as yours.

Regardless, he's captured my heart with his gorgeously warm colour palette, his gentleness, and all the delicious trauma potential that comes with godhood (AUGHH Azhdaha's quest still kills me to see him SO sad to have to say goodbye to a friend). Had it also not been for him, I'd have never met my friend who roleplays him on tumblr, and became close friends with her too.

Personal Headcanons

All headcanons are different and open for interpretation, but these are the ones I can't unsee or detangle from him as a character.

I see him with more tanned skin and age wrinkles by his eyes, making him look closer to his 40's
Geo arms ... permanently there, but because of how he dresses, you don't see them often; if he's forced to show his arms, he will take on a human skintone
There's a little fork to his tongue and sharper canines, but you need to pay attention to see it
Permanent scar on his chest from his gnosis removal
He sometimes wears a green bow for his hair instead of his gemstone clasp
His hair glows when embarrassed or experiencing a deep emotion, and on occasion scales will form on his skin too
His exuvia horns are sensitive to the touch since he feels through them (think of it like exposed, raw elemental energy)
I see him as agender, mostly due to him seeing himself as just Zhongli and an elemental being. Still goes by he/him, but he's flexible and doesn't mind what others use
Demisexual and demiromantic
Those who are close to him see a very mischevious side of him that errs on childish at moments
Any injuries he sustains are like breaking open a gemstone; his body 'cracks' and shows the solid, golden insides that make him
He likes pebbling, aka gifting small things to those he cares for; he is materialistic in the form that physical items retain sentimental value to him, especially from those who are now gone
Due to being an elemental being made of geo (as I see archons not as gods but elemental beings like slimes), he can feel vibrations and movement through the ground
Autism (man and his square cups and yap sessions about special interests and liking schedules and consistency)

Edit Gallery

Aka I went to go edit the official art with my headcanons of him.