Genshin Impact is a game about beating up enemies and rescuing digital girl- and boyfriends from a merciless gacha system. But surprisingly, for a lot of other players and myself, nothing’s sparked more joy in the game than killing Timmie’s pigeons.
Who is Timmie? He’s the annoying kid that hangs out on the bridge to the game’s first major city, Mondstadt, feeding pigeons and judging the Traveler (i.e. you) for killing said birds. Unfortunately for Timmie, his disapproval does nothing to dissuade me from massacring his feathered friends for sustenance. Sorry, kid. I need bird meat to cook for my wife Mona.
We don’t have a lot of in-game content involving Timmie, so it’s surprising that he’s become the fan favorite enemy of the people. (Second only to Pallad, probably.) Timmie shows up in two connected commissions and one request that all revolve around the birds. If you kill the ducks in “Pigeon, Duck, Child,” Timmie will cry about it to his caretaker. The next day, you get a commission where you apologize to him.
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Outside the game’s canon content, Timmie is the centerpiece of the Genshin community’s version of the Fuck Them Kids meme, also known as Fuck Timmie. People post tips and pigeon-hunting showcases in the r/FuckTimmie and r/Genshin_Impact subreddits.
Some of these showcases are truly astounding for the amount of sheer creativity and patience on display. Reddit user aznnerd90 launched Ganyu’s attack from Springvale and hit the dead center of Timmie’s flock, instantly vaporizing every single bird. They detailed the labor involved under a comment, asking how much they had to practice.
“[It] took me about 45 minutes or so,” they guessed. “The biggest challenge is figuring out approximately which location will let me hit near the bridge, after that it’s just minor adjustments in the starting location. It’s easier if you are consistent with your shots.”
Inspired by aznnerd’s post, Reddit user omgpikachu1 used the half-Qilin adepti to destroy Timmie’s birds by accurately launching an attack from all the way in Dragonspine, a further location than Springvale. Yet another user also demonstrated their extreme prowess by getting Ganyu to successfully attack from atop a windmill in Mondstadt.
While Ganyu, the newest 5-Star character, seems to be the popular Timmie bully, glitches are also used for the greater good of pigeon execution. Reddit user Lemon_Vibez provided the insight that Albedo’s Solar Isotoma elevator can launch a character much further into the sky than normal, provided the player inputs the right actions. Enterprising players immediately deployed the Albedo glitch to escape the pigeons’ detection radar, and to launch plunging attacks directly in front of Timmie.
Besides using single units, players also experimented with character combinations. Reddit user thetinytrex used Albedo’s elevator (unglitched) to give Keqing an extra boost in the sky — and subsequently used Keqing to get high enough to dive bomb Timmie’s birds. Another user, Chef-Nasty, chose a gust-generating gadget called the Wind Catcher to propel the Traveler far enough into the sky to launch an attack on top of the pigeons.
Okay, So Why Timmie?
Some people will wonder why I sound so enthusiastic about ruining a digital child’s life, or why the Genshin Impact community is united in destroying Timmie’s faith in human kindness. As with any meme, it’s hard to explain why people are so into it. On r/FuckTimmie, people cite the boy’s annoying demeanor as the chief motive behind the Timmie vendetta. However, as far as annoying children go, Timmie is far from the worst offender in video games.
My armchair theory is that people like killing Timmie’s birds because it’s so out of character for the Traveler. In the story, the protagonist swoops into Mondstadt and Liuye to defeat mythological dragons and unsealed gods alike. Not only do we handle the big stuff, we also take on an astounding amount of random errands, as in any open-world RPG. Childe foists his kid brother on us, and we agree to look after Teucer. The local Liuye poet needs regular help with inspiration, and we go on side quests to provide him with some imagery.
Delivery service, babysitter, and god-slayer: the Traveler does it all. Making Timmie sad by killing his bird friends doesn’t fit in with the player character’s hero branding, but that’s why it’s such a scandalously good time. It’s like I’ve added my own, evil side quest to spice up the repetitive, heroic tasks (like saving Pallad from a group of hilichurls — truly, fuck that dude for making us fight the Cyro Regisvine from hell).
My more outlandish hypothesis is that the gacha system is our truest enemy. Since fighting it is so out of the realm of possibility in Genshin Impact, players settle for bullying the annoying kid. If developer Mihoyo placed an in-game representation of RNG, I would deeply relish in destroying it.
But like I said, these are just armchair theories. There’s probably not just one good reason for the communal grudge against Timmie. We’re all trapped in quarantine with nothing but free time on our hands. Some of us use it to come up with elaborate methods of pigeon execution!
How You, Too, Can Kill Timmie’s Birds
Videos showcasing elaborate ways of killing Timmie’s birds are pure works of art: ultimately beautiful, but hard to recreate. For those just embarking on their Fuck Timmie journey, here are a few tips.
Any character with a bow can take a few of Timmie’s birds out. If you don’t want to spend money, you can use Amber (I know it sounds like common sense, but it personally took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out how to farm birds effectively.)
To perform a clean sweep of the flock, players with a minimal character roster can use the Anemo Traveler’s Elemental Burst. In general, any character with a wide-ranged area-of-effect skill will do. For example, even though most of Diluc’s kit is geared towards smacking single enemies, his fiery bird-like Elemental Burst can roast the entire flock. Albedo’s Elemental skill works great, too. Characters specifically designed for AOE attacks like Venti and Sucrose are all good choices as well.
One kind person on the Fuck Timmie subreddit made their own Character Tier list, specifically for murdering those birds, as a handy consultation for which characters are most single-handedly effective for destroying Mondstadt’s pigeon population. I mostly agree with it. Though I think a few characters ranked at the bottom tier are more effective than the user gives them credit for.
To add to the research and science behind ruining Timmie’s life, I put together a table detailing which character skills you can use to kill Timmie’s birds. I’m not blessed enough by the gatcha gods to own the entire Genshin Impact roster, so for the characters I don’t own, I gleaned info from other players’ experimentation. Note that this is not a final tally; there are a few characters I’m not sure about. Even more inventive players can probably kill Timmie’s birds with characters I personally haven’t figured out!
| Character | Skills To Kill Timmie’s Birds |
| Diluc | Elemental Burst will get most. |
| Albedo | Elemental Skill will get most. |
| Ganyu | Charged Shot will get most. |
| Venti | Elemental Burst will get most. |
| Diona, Fischl, Amber | Charged shot will get a few. |
| Childe | Charged shot and Elemental Skill. |
| Chongyun | Unsure. His Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst could take out birds if you time it just right. I haven’t gotten it to work yet. |
| Jean | Elemental Skill will get one or two, if you’re fast enough. |
| Kaeya | Elemental Skill will get most, if you’re fast enough. |
| Keqing | Elemental skill will get one or two. |
| Klee | Unsure. Haven’t seen Klee used to hunt birds. But theoretically, I feel like her bomb should work. |
| Lisa | Unsure. Haven’t seen Lisa used to hunt birds. But theoretically, I feel like her Elemental Skill or Bust should work. |
| Ningguang | Elemental Skill and Elemental Burst will get most. |
| Sucrose | Element Burst or Skill will get most. |
| Xiangling | Elemental Burst will get most. |
| Zhongli | Elemental Burst will get most. |
| Barbara, Beidou, Bennett, Mona, Noelle, Qiqi, Razor, Xinyan, and Xingqiu | None. |
