The fandom doesn't just fight the Honkai, they also make memes.
For the Fan Nicknames, see this page, although some examples may overlap given that Fan Nickname is a sub-trope of Memetic Mutation.
Please add entries in the following format if possible:
- The meme. [[labelnote:Explanation]]The explanation behind the meme, if necessary.[[/labelnote]] Explanation Like this.
- Further mutations and successor memes, if any.
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Playable Characters
- Kiana Kaslana:
- Kiana the Amoeba Explanation (Spoilers!) Once it's revealed that the playable Kiana is actually Experiment K423, many jokes were made about her being grown in a vat from an amoeba-like state. Even the "Feng Shui" online divining that miHoYo puts in their site jokes about it.
- Kiana is Thanos Explanation (Spoilers!) Herrscher of Flamescion's greatsword has 4 gems imbedded into it, and they are frequently compared to the Infinity Stones of Thanos's gauntlet.
- HoF = Herrscher of Family Explanation (Spoilers!) As Kiana becomes the Herrscher of Flamescion, she states that it was the kindness of others that guided her, referring to her "family": Himeko, Mei, Bronya, Theresa and Fu Hua. The obvious Dom Toretto jokes were made.
- Kiana Catlana Explanation Puns, jokes, and photo edits
◊ exaggerating Kiana's cat motifs, and pointing out how she sometimes behaves like a cat. - Moon Kiana Explanation (Spoilers!) Memes derived from the popular fan theory or heavy implication that Kiana might have sealed herself into the moon alongside 99% of the Honkai energy during the Time Skip leading up to the "A Post-Honkai Odyssey" storyline. These memes or fanworks depict her being all alone in the moon, and what she might've been doing there to pass time is up to interpretations.
- "Turned into the moon that always tells the warmth and brightness of the sun." Explanation (Spoilers!) The "Moon Halo" theme song commemorates Kiana becoming the Herrscher of Flamescion, but this specific line is somehow treated by fans as a Foreshadowing of the aforementioned "APHO" theory/implication. This line and its excerpts are either used with a sad context (suggesting Kiana would go to the moon and be left alone there if not performing a Heroic Sacrifice), or with a literal and comical context (suggesting Kiana would literally turn into a moon). The latter variants of the meme often edit Kiana's face into the moon's surface.
- Raiden Mei:
- Mei's Victory Pose as Valkyrie Bladestrike looks like she's lining up a shot in billiards.
- Mei is HOT Explanation (Spoilers!) Chapter 17's climax has Mei, with the World Serpent's help, re-awakening as Herrscher of Thunder to save Kiana from the Honkai corruption that's killing her, and Version 4.1 makes her playable. Cue this joke. The fact that she does look hot is a good bonus.
- Mei uses Chidori Explanation (Spoilers!) In the teaser video for the animated short of Chapter 17, we're treated to Kiana and Herrscher Mei fighting hand-to-hand, where the latter nails the former in the gut with a lightning-filled hand strike. It didn't take long for fans to joke that Sasuke taught her the move, or that Kiana may be able to do a Rasengan with her own powers, or to link it with the "NARUTO! SASUKE!" meme.
- Mei, Herrscher of the Kitchen Explanation (Spoilers) Mei is known for her superb cooking, which everyone in the group (especially Kiana) likes. Thus when discussion of her "Playable Herrscher form" comes up, it's often tied to her cooking expertise in some way, like how her "true power" is to cook a lot of inhumanly tasty food or that her "weapon" is a frying pan or spatula. When her Herrscher of Thunder form was officially revealed and released, there were a lot more jokes about it, like how she could cook with her lightning powers or her extra arms, or how her cooking will be different after Version 4.1, or how she's now becoming a Team Chef for the World Serpent's side.
- Get in the damn Wotan, Mei! Explanation The crossover collaboration between Honkai Impact 3rd and Neon Genesis Evangelion features a plot that re-enacts a lot of scenes from the latter franchise, with the Wotan being a stand-in for EVA-01 and Mei one for Shinji Ikari. Naturally, the old "Get in the fucking robot, Shinji!" meme got resurrected with the collaboration.
- Will Mei do the "mayonnaise" scene? Explanation As the Evangelion event re-enacts a lot of scenes from said franchise, the fans joked about whether the infamous "Shinji masturbating to the comatose Asuka" scene in End of Evangelion would be adapted here, with Mei in Shinji's place (and Kiana in Asuka's place). Sadly, though, it didn't happen.
- Mei gets cucked Explanation The end of the "Shattered Samsara" video (the end of Chapter 22) is one big Ship Tease moment for Kiana and Fu Hua, when the former was shipped more with Mei; it didn't help that Kiana and Mei had a bitter fight in Chapter 17 which ended in the latter leaving her to join the World Serpent (for a plan that could save Kiana in the long run). Cue many jokes at Mei's expense whenever Kiana and Fu Hua are talked about, or in the comments about the fanarts of this pairing. Common variations include "Green Hat Mei" (with fans joking that Otto shares some of his "green hats" with her), "today's dinner is chicken wings and tuna (referring to Fu Hua and Kiana respectively)", "why do I hear thunderstorm coming?", etc.
- Bronya Zaychik:
- Kamen Rider Bronya Explanation (Spoilers!) At the end of Chapter 11, Bronya becomes the Herrscher of Reason and upgrades Project Bunny to include an alternate motorcycle mode, among other things. A motorcycle-riding heroine with a borrowed butterfly motif, who fights huge evil monsters? That was definitely asking for a comparison.
- Bronya the underage rider Explanation (Spoilers!) Bronya is still relatively young compared to most other characters, and she's been riding a bike since she was younger. There are thus many jokes in the fans on how she'll get fined for underage riding.
- "Deja Vu!" Explanation Fans adding the memetic "Deja Vu" song popularized by Initial D to clips of Bronya riding her motorcycle at high speeds, as seen on this fan-made animation. It became widespread enough in the community, it got acknowledged by Bronya's Chinese voice actress, Hanser, making a cover version of the song.
- "Into Da Bronyaverse" Explanation The main story follows the young version of Bronya Zaychik, the Time Skip in "A Post-Honkai Odyssey" has her adult self, and the "Captainverse" has her Alternate Self Bronie/Haxxor Bunny. But when PROMETHEUS No. 17 shows up in the New Atra moon base and looks very identical to Bronya, fans have started comparing this trend to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It gained a resurgence when Honkai: Star Rail was released, as that game has two additional Bronya "counterparts" – Bronya Rand and Silver Wolf.
- Fu Hua/Herrscher of Sentience:
- PHOENIX IS THE HOTTEST THING THERE IS!! Explanation This originates from the "Winter Rhapsody" event, where Fu Hua makes the Captain scream this line as an Invocation to clear obstacles, which becomes a Running Gag throughout the event. Fu Hua fans naturally lapped this up, with later events referencing it.
- She supports her allies by beating the enemies to death so her allies don't have to risk themselves Explanation (Spoilers!) Herrscher of Sentience (Fu Hua), in the beta tests, was first intended to be a Support Party Member... except that not only are her attacks really flashy, they also hit really hard for her to be a mere "support". Thus, when she was released, she was noted to be both a DPS and a support character. Fans joke about her role with this quote (with variations).
- YATTA! Explanation (Spoilers!) At least in the Japanese voice-over, Herrscher of Sentience ends her whip sword mode's branch attack by throwing her arms to the air and exclaiming "Yatta!", meaning "Alright!" or "Yes!" in Japanese. This is seen as cute and catchy by many fans, so it spread widely in the community; it even becomes one of the official HI3 Discord's emotes. This also led to the fans occasionally calling her "Yatta" as a pet name.
- "WATASHI WA SUBETE WO KAEMASU!" / "TAIKYO NO KEN!" Explanation In a similar vein to the "Rickroll" and "Samroll" memes, this is an Interrupting Meme inserted to some video clips. In the Honkai fandom, this refers to the animation and Japanese-dubbed voice lines from Herrscher of Sentience whenever she uses her Ultimate skill.
- Murata Himeko:
- "Never let you go" Explanation (Spoilers!) The first line from the chorus of "Nightglow". It's associated a lot with Himeko because the song plays during "The Final Lesson" animation where she dies while bringing back Kiana from the Herrscher of the Void. This phrase is often used to remind the depressing parts of the main story, when someone tries to ask if Himeko is going to be revived, or simply when one fan just wants to start a comment chain of lyrics.
- Theresa Apocalypse/Zhuge Kongming:
- "Teri-teri! Sekai de Ichiban Kawaii!" Explanation Theresa loves calling herself the world's number 1 cutest. Because she has several in-game voice clips with this topic, whether in the Dorms or during a battle, these lines have been heavily associated with many posts, memes and fanarts about her.
- Judah-chan is the best Valkyrie Explanation The Oath of Judah is one of the most powerful and infamous Game Breakers in the game, capable of dealing a ton of lightning damage in a short time, leading to players jokingly suggesting Oath of Judah whenever someone ask who's the best Valkyrie in the game. It's also versatile enough that all versions of Theresa benefit from it, leading to a joke that, instead of choosing the best weapon for Theresa, you choose the best Theresa for Oath of Judah. This is widespread enough to become an Ascended Meme, with miHoYo releasing a Valkyrie Judah stigmata, and Ai-chan once replacing Theresa's Valkyrie Pledge portrait with a picture of Judah-chan cosplaying Ai-channote On Ai-chan's birtday on 2018, Ai-chan replaced the portraits of several Valkyrie's with a shot of her humourously cosplaying as them. For Theresa's portrait, she went with a Judah-chan cosplay instead.
- Derpy Theresa Explanation Originating in one strip of the 4koma series, it depicts the scene of the "chibi dorms" of the game, but with Theresa being given a derpy walleyed expression. This eventually gets into the game itself as one of the "chat stickers", but with her wearing her alternate costume (a Chinese dress), and it also becomes an official keychain. In the "Honkai Kingdoms: Zero" event, Zhuge Kongming is depicted like this in Kiana's side of the story.
- Long-legged Kongming/Zhuge Longming Explanation Starlit Astrologos (Zhuge Kongming)'s promotional art shows her from a low angle where her legs are prominent; they look as if they're disproportionately long compared to her body. This gave birth to jokes where she's drawn with much longer legs, or how she could run faster than other Theresa because of them, or how she's no longer a shortie.
- Vampire Theresa is so HOT Explanation The "Lunar Vow" battlesuit is "Luna" becoming older and looking like a mature woman, unlike other Theresa forms' young look. Fans usually ran with it as comparison between this and the Main Theresa is inevitable.
- Rita:
- Argent Knight, the Stand user Explanation Rita's Argent Knight: Artemis battlesuit is often called "Stand user" by many fans (with her Cresent Harvest as her Stand). This is another Ascended Meme; in the "Dreams of Gemina" chronicle, she does a Jojo pose while manifesting Cresent Harvest. The meme would later extend to Bronya (with Project Bunny as her Stand), Durandal (who can control 2 "Stands" at once), and occasionally Seele (who uses her own Split Personality as her "Stand"), most notably in video parodies in Bilibili.
- Fallen Rosemary/Long-haired Rita is overflowing with "Ara-ara" energy Explanation Fallen Rosemary, the Rita battlesuit introduced in Version 4.2, is often said to be much more beautiful than her (already beautiful) other forms, what with the elegant dress, swift movements, alluring poses and especially the longer hair. Players joke that she's so gorgeous that it's actually scary, as if it leaves them defenseless.
- Seele:
- Seele Vollerei WHEN? SOON​ Explanation Seele had a far larger role in the previous game, but here, she "died" years before the present, and the present story doesn't say much about her; her only appearance here is as a set of stigmata that depicts her wielding a Sinister Scythe, so that it gives people an idea of her possible playable appearance. Then a playable Valkyrie wielding a scythe is released... and it's Rita.
- This is famous enough to receive a Fandom Nod in the "Honkai Kingdom" event, where one of the choices you could try to wish for is "Stop delaying Seele's release to the next version!". Choosing that leads to the following reply:
Mysterious Voice: Response confirmed. Rewriting success.
Coming soon...
- Becomes a discredited meme once Version 3.2 comes out, when she's confirmed to be playable.
- "BRONYA ONEE-CHAN!" Explanation In the Japanese dub, Seele says this a lot whenever she calls for, or mentions Bronya. Due to its abundance in her voiced lines, it became a memetic phrase since the early 2020s, but the most commonly used clip in fanvids comes from a Bridge interaction when you tap Herrscher of Reason.
- Kallen Kaslana:
- New Kallen battlesuit when? / Kallen buff when? Explanation Kallen is obviously the playable character with the least amount of attention from miHoYo. Her battlesuits are all Low-Tier Letdowns and she hasn't received any new battlesuits in years. Kallen fans are understandably urging miHoYo to either buff Kallen or to release a new Kallen battlesuit.
- Vs Elemental Valkyries Explanation Kallen as a Boss is notorious for being immune to fire, ice and electro damage, leading to her tanking some of the most powerful Valkyries attacks like it's nothing.
- Yae Sakura:
- "I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING" Explanation Due to the fandom overlap between Honkai Impact 3rd and Devil May Cry, Yae Sakura is being associated with Vergil-related Devil May Cry memes, nicknames and quotes. A common trend involves DMC fans mentioning the lyrics of his "Bury the Light" Image Song on Yae-related content, especially her Goushinnso Memento battlesuit. This trend has seen a resurgence during Version 5.9 when the Memento battlesuit became playable on the Elysian Realm game mode.
- A Post-Honkai Odyssey's Main Character:
- "Harem Protagonist" / "APHO = Adam's Personal Harem Odyssey" Explanation His earliest memes compare him to a typical harem anime protagonist because he's the first male playable character in a game dominated by female characters. This also made him a Launcher of a Thousand Ships.
- "The Adam Mindset" / "Sigma Grindset" / "Adamillionaire" Explanation A trend of portraying the "A Post-Honkai Odyssey" Protagonist (a.k.a. "Adam") as someone who's Only in It for the Money, and not being romantically attracted to anyone else. Alongside other factors such as his in-game dialogue options, it's believed to have gone viral in the fandom due to this meme edit◊ where he's alone compared to the various Yuri pairings and fan ships of HI3.
- "Adam x Paycheck" Explanation The meme also resulted into shipping Adam with his paycheck, money or funds, often as a joke rebuttal to any fan who ships him with the other characters of "APHO" (Mei, Carole, Bronya, Timido, Lyle). This has spread even further when "APHO Part 2" offered this dialogue option◊ where you can make him say "I'll stay alive until the day I can cash my pension fund."
- "Theresa, where's my paycheck!?" Explanation The story of "A Post-Honkai Odyssey" happens with a Time Skip after the Main Story. With Theresa Apocalypse becoming the new Schicksal Overseer, and the Protagonist being affiliated with Schicksal and St. Freya Academy, the "Paycheck" jokes involved her as well.
- "Chad Adam" / "ChAdam" Explanation Adam being likened to the viral "Giga Chad" memes. These are also often used as Fan Nicknames.
- Elysia:
- SEGGS Explanation An intentional misspelling of the word "sex", used in response to Fanservice. While the word is not unique to Honkai Impact 3rd (it's based on a meme video of a Japanese man chasing a car), the Honkai fandom heavily associates it with Elysia because she's Best Known for the Fanservice. It usually involves fans quoting phrases from said video as well.
- Herrscher of Seggs Explanation (Spoilers!) The conclusion of Elysian Realm Chapter 3 reveals that the 13th Herrscher was Elysia, leading to an evolution of the aforementioned "SEGGS" meme.
- Elysian Realm Among Us Explanation (Spoilers!) In Chapter 29, Elysia's sim is murdered, and Mei and the other Flamechasers attempt to find the one responsible. This was likened to Among Us.
- Pardofelis:
- Weakest FlamechaserExplanation As the 13th Flamechaser, Pardo has stated multiple times during the course of the Elysian Realm story arc that her fighting abilities is inferior to her comrades, but during the 5.9 Summer Beach Melee event, she somehow managed to win all the PVP matches she was in, even beating Aponia, who's only ranked below Kevin and Elysia, and emerge victorious as the champion.
- Griseo
NPCs
- Higokumaru:
- Sakura-nee! Explanation In Sakura Samsara, Higokumaru is rather talkative, sometimes annoyingly so, to the point that some players turn off her dialogue. She says "Sakura-nee!" a lot in her voiced lines, so fans easily associated her with the phrase.
- Otto Apocalypse:
- Green Hat Otto Explanation In Chinese internet, wearing a green hat memetically means you're a cuck (i.e having your girlfriend stolen). In Otto's case, Kallen has her eyes more for Sakura than him, i.e Sakura stole her from him. Many fan comics that involved the cuck joke between them were made with him wearing the hat (or the hat itself showing up) as the punchline.
- "Otto did nothing wrong" Explanation A common phrase used by players who sympathize with Otto due to his motivations or backstory, despite the problems he caused while pursuing his goals. This gained some resurgence after the final act of the Kolosten Arc, which featured the "Thus Spoke Apocalypse" animated video depicting his sacrifice.
- "Best Girl Otto" Explanation Ever since fans discovered a Stigmata artwork depicting Otto in a woman's lovely dress and hat, it has been used as a Bait-and-Switch template, usually inserted as the central focus of a joke image or video frame. It went along with jokes calling Otto as the "Best Girl" or "Best Valkyrie".
- Ai-Chan:
- Cabbage Hair Ai-chan Explanation Due to how Ai-chan's Odango Hair looks like a pair of cabbages. Common jokes include making her hair actual cabbages, or her planting and farming cabbages as a side job. This is another meme that the game's acknowledged; during the "Cooking with Kiana" event, the Cabbage Fruit Drops you can make are green lollipops that have Ai-chan's face on them. Later, there's also the "Green Cabbage - Timeless Garden" event (and subsequent events using the same mechanic), where you can farm various cabbages modeled mainly after Ai-chan.
- Ai-chan ate my crystals! Explanation Whenever a player pulls a high rarity equipment or a Valkyrie from the Supply, Ai-chan will announce it in the chat. As the Supply usually requires crystals to pull, this leads to people—who either had to pull 9 times until they pull the guaranteed-high-rarity one, and/or those who get "spooked" with the high rarity equipment/Valkyrie they didn't aim for—making grieving jokes about how Ai-chan made them waste their crystals. This also leads to fan arts about Ai-chan and crystals. This also leads to players to try politely asking Ai-chan to give them a certain drop before pulling the Supply, or praising her with words such as calling Ai-chan "cute" or the like or otherwise calling Ai-chan "that damned cabbage" for not giving them the drop they want.
- Kevin Kaslana:
- Instant noodles / Kevin eating Ramen Explanation A recurring joke based on how often Kevin is depicted eating noodles.
- Kalpas:
- Kalpas "smashed" Mobius Explanation One of the earliest fan theories about Klein suggests that he's the child of Kalpas and Mobius, based on a conversation◊ in the Elysian Realm mode which mentions a crater half-covered by snake scales being "Kalpas' fault". Because Mobius has snake motifs, the fandom joked that she and Kalpas did some Destructo-Nookie at that time, resulting in both Klein and the crater.
- Gordon Ramsey KalpasExplanation In 5.9's summer event, it was revealed that Kalpas is a master chef. Combined with his fiery temper, the Gordon Ramsey jokes made themselves.
- Sa/Vita
- KING CRIMSON/"Kore ga REQUIEM... Da!"Explanation(Spoilers for Chapter XLII) During a Boss Battle against Sa, she skips through the end of a countdown and unleashs her One-Hit Kill leads to a Game-Over is compared to King Crimson from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Golden Wind, Vita on the other hand uses her Time Master powers to rewind time back before the countdown is compared to Gold Experience Requiem from said manga series.
Others
- PI-PI-PI-PI-PIZZA PIZZA Explanation This is the first lyric in the opening theme for Cooking with Valkyries, which is very catchy and memetic to a lot of fans.
- "The Phone-toasting Ultimates" Explanation (Spoilers!) The Ultimate skills of Herrscher of the Void and Herrscher of Reason are very cinematic and involve a lot of moving, graphically intense objects that can be too much for average phones to handle. This joke comes up often in Coop Multiplayer where the three player characters are out at the same time and thus there's a chance that they may perform their ults together. Later, Stygian Nymph (Seele) and Herrscher of Thunder (Mei) are often added to this joke.
- Screw "Ace", I want "Gion" Explanation "Gion" is the main theme of the bridge screen; many players like this theme for being calming, soothing and/or fitting the atmosphere of the game. Around the update of Chapter 7, an alternative bridge theme, "Ace", gets introduced, which sounds more suspenseful, more fitting with the atmosphere of chapters 7 to 9. There was a glitch that caused "Ace" to be replaced with "Gion" or vice versa after you play story stages; this is often used by players to change their bridge theme to Gion, as many of them found it to be the better theme. Meanwhile, newer players of Global server lamented that their theme is always Ace rather than Gion. Discredited after "Gion" returned to being the bridge theme, with "Ace" playing over only when selecting Story Stages in certain chapters.
- Stage cleared, missed the medals Explanation Each stage in the Story mode, along with some of the other levels, has three achievements which give you a few crystals for completing them. It's rather common for players to miss on getting them, though, either because they forgot to do them or, more likely, they cleared the stage before they could complete the tasks. The most common explanation is that they're overleveled which causes the enemies to die too quickly before they can complete the tasks (especially if it requires them to build up combo hits). The most critical thing about this is that, for story mode stages (or Chronicles ones) especially, they're real stamina hogs, and if you cleared the stage you'll waste the stamina without getting what you really wanted.
- That wibbly-wobbly plane Explanation There's a particular appliance in the Dorm called "Motion Training Device", a "toy plane" that the chibis can be put in; the plane then wobbles left and right while the chibi in question makes an adorable "shocked" expression. The online 4-koma made by the miHoYo staff also jokes about it. Eventually, they released the plane as an actual wobble toy, while the "Gemina Invasions" event references it in its final bonus stage, where all you have to do is to build multiples of this toy around the stage, with the event characters enjoying them one way or another.
- Anime please! Explanation Almost every time miHoYo releases a CG animated short video, there will be fans clamoring for an anime adaptation of the game. Without mincing words, their CG animation is top-notch, featuring smooth, detailed and dynamic action shots, more than what you'd expect for a video game studio. However, making the videos apparently took quite a long time for each (around 6 months just for a 5-6 minutes long video), so that making a full anime that way will cost too much time.
- Post-Honkai Odyssey busted my phone Explanation Back when the preview for an all-new game mode was released (several months prior to Version 3.8), there were already jokes flying about how "potato" phones would struggle, lag, and heat up badly to try to render it (if not failing entirely), because of all of the graphical updates (dynamic lighting, destructible objects, etc) and the vastness of the open world make the game really demanding on the phone's engine. Thankfully they released the PC port in Versions 3.6 and 3.7; the more powerful PC spec would allow it to render the game mode more smoothly.
- miHoYo: Happy ending? What's that? Explanation As years have passed, miHoYo has made an infamous reputation for writing dark and sad storylines where their characters go through a lot of tragedy. Even Guns GirlZ / Honkai Gakuen 2 ended much like End of Evangelion where one of the main characters became the ultimate Apocalypse Maiden and caused The End of the World as We Know It. As for Honkai Impact 3rd, the only times where their stories "end" with a high note can be counted with one hand: Sakura Samsara, The Soul Throne, and Chapters 12, 22 and 25 of the game.
- "it's a positive and wholesome story" Explanation A line said during an interview of miHoYo's writers that became heavily memed and used as a sarcastic remark, due to it being contradictory to most of the game's arcs.
- "Cycle of Depression and Horny" Explanation The story chapters and arcs usually end up being tragic, thus contributing to the reputation of HI3 having a "depressing" lore for a gacha game. On the other hand, the game also has attractive and/or revealing character designs, which caused it to be Best Known for the Fanservice, especially from Pop-Cultural Osmosis or word-of-mouth on the Internet. The community then made jokes and memes on how being an HI3 player equates to participating in a cycle of depression and fanservice, sometimes alternating in between.
- HoD = Hanser of Dominance Explanation During the Live performance of "Cyberangel: ZERO Exception", Bronya's VA Hanser was wearing some visors which made her look very similar to one of the many Herrscher of Dominance Puppets
