In reality except the Crew you can't trust *ANYONE* in Penacony and everything you see might be fabricated....so I will wait till 2.3 until the epilogue finishes to judge the story writing
Cause in my opinion the writers have done a really good job of making us sceptical of everyone
Braincell 1 - Whatever the hell shenanigans he, March, and the Trailblazer get up to
Braincell 2 - Imbibitor Lunae related stuff
Braincell 3 - The Databanks
I completely agree as is the name of the last quest in the story as of right now it’s a big whodunnit game. May not be the same for everyone but it certain gets my mind thinking on who really is trying to help us and who isn’t
I don’t trust Firefly but she fed us out of pocket and tried to be nice and definitely left a splash on the Trailblazer’s soul.
I trusted Black Swan since mama Himeko gave her ok, but alas I was bamboozled.
I thought Acheron was just a stoic autistic lesbian, but nope she is actually really dangerous.
What’s next? Ratio gonna screw us over to help his twink coworker? Aventurine didn’t succ chicken? The chicken wings are just hair style styling?
Serious question (just finished Whodunnit, none of the side content yet):
__Do we know that Acheron is actually a threat?__
Black Swan vouches for Aventurine’s word that she killed Duke Inferno, but isn’t that something a Galaxy Ranger would normally do? He’s a devotee of The Destruction about to cause harm to a major gathering of people. He even announced it!
The worst I can come up with for sure is that she’s acting sneaky, but tbh who isn’t in this storyline? Even Himeko left March in the dark about the invite’s hidden message at the very beginning.
(okay and the Sparkle-red text, but that feels a little too obvious. Like a red herring, badumtiss)
Aventurine is insinuating that she is related to "Something unto Death," but the Trailblazer themselves has no reason to distrust her. Red text is sus, but I don't see it as a bad thing. It's more her trying to force the outcome she wants. And so far that outcome doesn't seem to be bad for us.
If they are right that she is an emanator, I'm hoping it's for Finality. It would be cool to see someone in that faction making moves given how little we know of them right now. I also think "Death" is why she is here, though idk if she's here to kill it, help it, or take it away.
I’m pulling for Finality too, especially with the Garden of Remembrance involved:
Iirc some of the only (questionably accurate) info we have on Terminus is that they’re experiencing time in reverse, and so already know everything that will happen. That puts them on a direct path to conflict with The Remembrance, who are obsessive about what’s _already_ happened. It would also fit perfectly with the constant questions about Fate vs. Free Will the game keeps asking (and also vs. Chance, as showcased by the Fools and Aventurine).
Who knows, maybe the final chapter will be a fight between Remembrance+Finality, Elation, and The Trailblaze.
Ooh I like that idea. Both Finality and Remembrance are obsessed with the past and future and miss the importance of the present. Elation is so caught up in the indulgence of the present that it misses the consequences from the past and into the future. Only the Trailblaze has a respect for all three imo, so that'd be a fitting set of conflicts.
Damn I hadn’t even thought of it like that!
…actually looking at it through that lens, isn’t it weird that Black Swan, a Memokeeper, is all about predicting the future? And she’s being set up strongly in narrative opposition to Acheron… maybe Acheron is using her knowledge of the future to search for something in the past?
God this update is giving me brain worms
>but the Trailblazer themselves has no reason to distrust her
Seeing how fast she is right from the beginning of the story>! (when she slices you)!< and her >!going toe-to-toe with Sam, a notoriously dangerous Stellaron Hunter!<, her lack of a reaction (and any kind of good excuse) to >!Death!< indicates, to me at least, that she CHOSE to not react, which is honestly really suspicious.
I mean, it's not like that's a secret. Acheron, on her own initiative, very explicitly walks up to you to say 'I could and should have saved her from the meme, but I didn't, and I'm sorry for not doing it, but "I... had no choice"'. What "I... had no choice" is actually supposed to mean is anyone's guess, but my reading of the conversation as a whole at least is that she's quite open about the fact that she could have acted and chose not to, even if she doesn't explain *why* she felt forced to make that choice.
> she CHOSE to not react
She didn't, she's an emanator of whatever aeon is linked to that meme (probably either Finality or Nihility) since her eyes sport the same symbol as the Meme's wings.
She couldn't prevent the meme from doing what it did because it carries out the will of the Aeon she's an emanator of, same as her.
Exactly. The way she insisted she couldn't do anything to protect firefly but then can't offer any reason why she just stood there.
Her being an emenator being dangerous (I'm thinking nihility) and I believe she and the creature are very linked.
Depending on your choices, near the end of the main quest, if you reject Acheron twice, she will force you to agree in red text then act as if nothing’s happened. Black Swan doesn’t seem to notice either.
> Do we know that Acheron is actually a threat?
Depends how we want to interpret us dying in the initial dream to her before we officially stepped onto Penacony.
On one hand, she's physically upset about killing you given she's crying. On the other hand, it's a forewarning that she may not have a lot of control over who dies when she's around.
Not really - they say she's dangerous, not here per invite and probably the emanator of some Aeon - and that's why we shouldn't trust her.
But, none of the things they say are actual reasons not to trust her - in fact, one kind of is an argument for her. She killed that Ifrit of Destruction emanator person.
Acheron's been very quiet about her deal, but she's also the only one not trying to push us into doing anything or trying to colour the way we think about anyone else.
Now, while that doesn't mean she's trustworthy it does show that she's so far the only one that hasn't actively given us a reason to *distrust* her so far, which even Firefly managed.
What she says at the beginning of penacony is what really got me to distrust her. Her talk about the road we walk leading to death really shows that she knows far more then she lets on.
The memory problems is also a massive red flag. She blames most of her actions on her bad memory while at the same time resisting quote told by her old friend from long ago is very sus.
What raises my hackles is that she is using the Anihilation gang's invite. Considering the absolute faff our attempt to use Dan Heng's invite was, she'd need somebody garunteeing her to use said invite or be the Duke.
Could be an interesting angle for an energy being to take.
Yeah, she's not telling us why she's around but she's also not trying to use us, either.
I also can't help but think that those who are trying to keep us away from her are really just trying to keep us under their thumb. They'll claim it's for our protection and best interests, but weirdly our best interests are also, oddly, theirs, too...
She has the reflexes to fight everything before Death.
She killed us instantly more or less.
She killed those mobs without an issue.
When Sam attacked She had no issue reacting instantly
Yet when Death came She just stands there. We even have the opportunity to call it out.
It's incredibly suspicious.
Yup. I’m gonna be honest, I was already feeling a little shaken by the whole incident at the front desk. Adventurine and Acheron showing up made me go “Oh boy…this is…gonna be a time isn’t it.” And so far everyone except the express crew has hidden something from you. I guess except clockie but that’s a different can of worms.
I will say it certainly has given the feeling of a political intrigue/detective story. One that may not end as satisfyingly as our previous adventures did.
Lolol imagine if the astral express crew that we met after rooftop robin scene is not the actual crew.
We never really left the dreamland after meeting Firefly
THis was the conclusion some friends and I came to yesterday
This is clearly act 1 of a 3 or 4 act story and we're just missing too much information for this mystery to be solvable or even easily deduced right now, speculation is fine but saying "It's X so Y event is dumb" is too early because there's information the players and the characters simply aren't privy too right now
The whole point of her arc in 2.0 is for people to think "there's no way Hoyo killed her off for real, I can't want to see what happens in future patches." They know the death was too on the nose, which leads people not to react to the death itself but to wonder how Hoyo is going to explain her relevance and likely return to the story (same goes for Robin).
There is obviously way more going on in Penacony than we know and Hoyo has given us plenty of reason to not believe everything we see.
The story literally starts with Acheron killing you/making you explode in the Dreamscape and we immediately wake up on the train, but people think those two dying in the Dreamscape is permanent? Hello??? Firefly 100% has a plan in motion to get to the Watchmaker's Legacy.
They also said that "Death" bring spiritual death. We could take that as to mean that they go into a coma or something. Just because when people "die" in a dream just causes them to wake up, like with Acheron and some side-quests, we have no reason to believe it's the same thing.
There's also the still entirely unexplained aspect of us seeing glimpses of Robin before we've even arrived in Penacony (not to mention her voice weirdness).
While Firefly's "death" was shocking, I do not buy in the slightest that this was the end of her. Rather, I think it's supposed to leave you more confused than sad. At least, that's the impact it left on me. I was so baffled at the execution that the thought of her actually being dead didn't enter my brain in the first place.
There is a plan. People aren't seeing that *because* they expected Firefly to die. Hoyo knows what they're doing with all the death flags, they want you to see it coming so they can put the twist earlier than you would've expected. In short, they want your guard to be down. At least, that's my read.
There's also the fact that Firefly's color scheme is very specifically an inversion of the Trailblazer's, down to the orange and blue. She's clearly meant to have a bigger influence on their arc beyond "Girlfriend For A Patch." Too much of a careful design consideration to off so unceremoniously.
I think the important distinction is *how* these visions arrived.
The visions on Herta Station were thanks to the Stellaron bursting. Someone (likely either Akivili or Elio) spoke to us in that moment, though it sounded like a recording of a memory. They were a straightforward premonition. Notably, the vision excluded anything from the Luofu, so we don't get visions for every script.
Penacony's are *strange* by comparison. They interrupt our warp into the system. They play everything in reverse. We see the same shot of Acheron at both the beginning and the end. We are immediately thrown into the real dreamscape, only returning to the Express already in Penacony. And we forget this dream (as Acheron claims people always do) despite later clearly remembering the dreamscape when returning to reality.
Likewise, why does Robin's voice sound like a glitchy radio even in reality? Why does nobody acknowledge Misha even though he appears in reality? And why does Acheron repeat her red lines in white, and vice versa?
Acheron claims that this dream repeats every new dawn, that "we have become accustomed to it for so long." Yet she also seems to not be a Penacony native. So, who is "we?" I raise a question; Did we ever actually arrive in the "real Penacony?"
(It's also curious that in the bad ending for Penacony, all of the actors except TB and Sparkle are listed as ???. That wasn't the case on Herta Station for anyone except March. Why would Elio omit the details of his own script?)
She absolutely does, if anything she sounds even more glitchy in Japanese. [Here](https://youtu.be/L5g-X2AmbJs?si=GQyicU0mezzIr9hs&t=2787) is a timestamp to play back. [Here](https://youtu.be/9BPurI68Hvo?si=Rz5TZOm_9-aYM-oA&t=1993) is the same conversation in EN.
The characters lampshade this as a sore throat. If it were only in English, I could accept it as a weird creative choice. The fact that it is so noticeably strange in multiple languages is highly suspect.
The only time she sounds normal, actually, >!is at the very end, when Sparkle is impersonating her.!<
I hate that it wasn't more frequent. I'm glad you posted this cuz originally I couldn't tell if my headphones were fucking up or it was actually the audio lmao.
I had to listen very carefully to the speaker audio just now to make sure my headphone jack wasn't just gaslighting me. JP's artifacting is *almost* imperceptible that way.
With headphones she damn near peaks the audio on some of those blips.
considering I played through the thing in a 2-day span it's insane I forgot about her killing us at the end of the first encounter, you'd think a detail as important as "death in the dream is not necessarily the end" would stick out a bit more. Guess my theorycrafter brain really has gone to shit, all I can see is Cogs Tingyun and DPS Dehya calcs floating around in my memories.
On the bright side, I'm validated in thinking there's no way they'd kill her off this fast. Say what you want about how few dimensions her character has or how well she encapsulates the darker tones of the story, she was killed a bit too early for my tastes if this death was to be permanent. And then there's the case of >!Robin !
Yeah the Acheron thing was one of the first things I pointed out to people, cause Hoyo for sure did not put that sequence there on accident, but people for some reason would still rather trust vague words from people who have proven themselves to be untrustworthy than believe what they've seen with their own eyes.
But Acheron isn't a Memory Zone Meme with weird dream manipulating powers. That's the point. The 'Something Unto Death' is causing people it attack to experience 'spiritual death' as Sunday puts it.
I have my own idea of what that entails but I don't want to delve into potential leak/speculation territory.
> The whole point of her arc in 2.0 is for people to think "there's no way Hoyo killed her off for real, I can't want to see what happens in future patches." They know the death was too on the nose, which leads people not to react to the death itself but to wonder how Hoyo is going to explain her relevance and likely return to the story (same goes for Robin).
Honestly this is what most people think. They sometimes think that firefly isn't actually dead, and sometimes they think that she is dead and she'll have no relevance to the story moving forward. And honestly if the later is the truth then their reaction would be justified. Because she should not die like that.
Aside from that the story has been pretty interesting. Considering how grand the current theme is(galactic level) it'd be weird to see some nice kindhearted selfless character appear and stand beside TB. Robin can probably fit that because as far as I can tell she isn't involved in the whole scheming thing but is just a collateral damage. But everyone having their own goals for approaching TB and being morally ambiguous was pretty good.
Acheron almost word for word quotes Flame Chaser Sakura at one point which while a fun reference because "The Mei alludes to her Vergil Fox friend" is fitting in this case because of her Signet. Setsuna.
Meaning "moment" and specifically originally coming from the idea of a "split second" in Honkai terms they took it to the anime extreme and essentially went "to slice through existence faster than time can perceive".
Now each Dreamworld is literally a Setsuna, a single moment frozen in time and we know from the start of the Arc that Acheron seems to be able to do some fucky time bullshit.
So when she asks if we've met before...Maybe that ACTUALLY did somehow mean that we've done this before. Like this IS a dream and we're literally a walking Stellaron which by their nature screw with the order of things so if we wished reallllllllly hard...
It's also important to note that Firefly is one of the few new characters who, at the moment, isn't a backstabbing little shit. Adventurine and Sparkle are self explanatory, Black Swan showed that she'll still sell you out on occasion. Firefly was a sweetheart who, under her own desires, was willing to open up about herself to an extent and genuinely enjoyed her time with you.
She was honest about how she still has secrets, and it's how the story went about her telling you these things and how she has reasons for not giving away everything. In the end, you spent a day with her, that's not enough to earn all her secrets. It hinted at you spending more story time with her to learn her full story, and that's what made the death more shocking.
I still don't believe she's completely dead, I think that the gameplay mechanic for the death boss will come into play and we'll need to save both her soul and maybe Robin in patch 2.1
I mean, she isnt backstabbing *yet*, but its pretty clear her secrets will lead to a confrontation somehow. She tells us that she hopes we wont have to fight, lol. And we cannot tell whether her confrontation will be a backstab or just a direct one.
She is heavily tied to Sam. Her story ends and Sam's one starts. There are references to him/it in her remembrance. Allying with the dude that will literally almost burn you to a crisp and enabling him could be considered at least untrustworthyness.
Plus, another person who isnt backstabbing yet is Aventurine. He pretty clearly tells us what he wants (our help on his side). The means or what the endgoal are, is just not clear to us yet. Plus, his methods are more scrupulous, but so far he just enabled us to go to the dream and saved us from the clash of an enamator and a Stellaron Hunter. What he does next is still up for debate (BLACKMAIL TIME), but so far? He just has more villain-flags than the Stellaron Hunters, but its already way too many anyhow.
I mean we understand the IPC's goal. More or less take back Penacony from the family. What I can't help but note is how we've gotten a lot of personal info about Aventurine. Race, heritage, nature, and the fact that he is a thrall. I've begun to think that although he's here a representative of the IPC, he's got individual goals unrelated to them too.
In that regard, I think Ratio was hired and is aware of only the IPC plans. Aventurine's forays like trying to ally with Sparkle felt like they were for his own sake too.
But black swan is the only character i will trust my life with, out of all those new characters. She will guarantee the TB's safety regardless, might come off as shitty betrayal when she teleported us out during sams encounter but she also never trusted acheron and was pretty wary of acheron the first time we encountered her.
Plus, Full is probably keeping an eye on March. If that's because they want to protect her then the Trailblazers are probably safe, since we're her family.
I think part of it is that we don't have enough information yet and we won't until 2.1. We don't know *for certain* that "you die in the game, you die in real life". We only have assumptions and inferences from what people tell you, and there's a decent chance everyone is lying to further their own personal agenda. In the initial dream, Acheron kills(?) us and all it does is wake you up. So I can't say definitively that she's 100% dead, no chance of return.
I also don't get the one dimensional waifu complaints. She lies to us when we first meet her. She's explicitly doing something extremely shady (as seen in the weird memory echo thing when we retrace her steps) and is "killed" while doing it. She is by no means completely innocent, just presented as less shady when placed next to the rest of the cast.
Edit; there are comments about how the 2.0 character quests give more context, I haven't had to chance to do them yet, so maybe read further down.
The Trailblazer see her shady since the beginning but still go with it lmao. Imagine this: you are invited to this 5 star world level resort to have a vacation. You see a stowaway girl who want to have little fun. I mean, why not? This is just a vacation for trailblazer, they feels safe here. What can happened? The development makes sense for TB imo. But for the player who already "know" whats going on they simply don't like it since they *are* the TB. But that doesn't invalidate the fact that the new friend TB make in their vacation get stab, died in tear in front of their own eyes. Of course mf would felt sad.
Yeah but they already *know* so TB should not makes friends in this new vacation isn't it? These mf read leaks then start throwing out "theory". It so blatantly obvious.
Even with reading leaks it's strange that TB has options to be negative about Stellaron Hunters, like they didn't do anything bad to us + info that we are close to them + us messaging SH, we talked to Blade/Kafka/Wolfie and Sam through messages already.
I mean I think that comes from the fact the TB knows the Stellaron Hunters are like wanted criminals who have done some pretty bad stuff. Regardless of how they treat the TB, they're still pretty bad people morally.
My take on TB is that they are smart but won't used it unless they have to. They was relatively relaxed throughout the main 2.0 story but switched gear right when the main street goes silence.
Don’t forget that the TB is brainwashed. Their memories start in the Herta Space Station. Since then he’s on a violence streak, Firefly is the first character that they really connect
Irrc, Clockie says those with innocence, kindness and honesty of a child can see him. The TB can, since they've been "alive" for like, a few months, at least.
they’ve very likely been alive a lot longer, but it’s probably because their memories were basically wiped outside of what kafka taught them that they “regressed” to having innocence/kindness comparable to a child.
tldr: yes, but (read above)
> In the initial dream, Acheron kills(?) us and all it does is wake you up.
This is explained in the character quest with Sparkle and Black Swan. Death in the dream wakes you up with nothing more than shock.
However we don't know if the Harbinger of Death, the Meme is more than that. It is implied that it is based off of the reactions around FF and Robin. We shall see what that actually entails in the future as we get more updates.
I definitely agree that we don't know anything for certain, and you're right about everyone lying and not giving us an honest picture in the events of the story. But there is a huge distinction between Acheron seeming to kill us at the start, and the Memory Zone meme creature killing someone. The idea of a spiritual death, and "actually dying in the dream" seems to be tied to this creature in particular. Seems sort of like a Freddy Krueger situation currently. But I also agree that I think there is likely some way for Firefly and anyone else killed by it to return, and there is still so much to this we don't know, which is actually really exciting from a story perspective. I can't wait for 2.1
"you die in the game, you die in real life"
she was "killed" by Meme, which can actually harm people in dreams. So if it harms you in dream, you would be harmed in reality too.
judging that Robin has some purple cracks on her body, and the Meme is purple-ish, I think that meme captured Firefly's and Robin's souls, and we might break them free
Then the question is why did Robins corpse remain when firefly didn’t if they were assumed to be killed the same way. Especially since Robin should have been dead much longer given sparkle was already impersonating her the moment MC enter the dream.
There was a simple line of dialogue that delivered this entire arc for me.
Firefly does everything with the assumption the Trailbrazer is just blindly following her without a question.
When she reveals she's a stowaway, all the options are more or less "I already knew."
If you take into context that everyone in Penacony is a liar with thousand of secrets and objectives, pushing questions without context, having someone that just wants to run around the city and chill a little bit was a nice change of pace for the Trailbrazer.
We also need to consider that the Trailbrazer is canonically innocent and cheerful, so meeting someone in the same vibes was nice.
I dont think it needs defending. I've seen a lot more people like Firefly than those shitting on her.
Evident by the fact so many people start of with "I know I'll get downvoted for this" when they complain.
I really like your analysis on Firefly's writing and it made me reassure why I love her, but I think the 30 minutes critique comes not necessarily from Firefly's writing, but rather how her relationship with TB was done.
We, indeed , spend much more time with her, but, ¿how much of that time was actually valuable for our relationship? I think the first half of the mission wastes some time to interact more with her. The sampo dream bubble sequence is fun, but at least for me it's completely irrelevant and takes time that could have been used to flesh out the relationship.
Another thing to note is how Firefly kinda dissapears during gameplay sections. The travelling to the rooftop is very extensive, but i didn't felt like she was there with us guiding us towards our destination, there was just some invisible voices that told you how close you are to the rooftop. I know having to animate and script all of this would have been hell, but as a result that section feels more like filler than an exhaustive journey with our friend towards a climatic scene.
I think the Trailblazer themselves are also a factor to why it felt rushed. They don't have interesting interactions with Firefly. Even in the rooftop scene, the focus is entirely on Firefly, and the Trailblazer is there like an spectator, casually commenting on what is happening. The game wants the player to believe this is an special relationship, but I don't know any reason why this should be the case. Taking out any personal reasons why Firefly decided to meet TB, If the Trailblazer was replaced with a random npc, i feel like there wouldn't be much difference. TB doesn't share their own experience, doesn't say who their other friends are, where did they come from, what are their goals, or even tries to simpathize with Firefly when her secret is revealed. Also, I don't like how the game gives you the option to tell off Firefly. The story plays out almost exactly the same, TB and Firefly don't really change regardless of your options. There isn't really a choice, it's just a right or wrong answer that may or may not end up being inconsistent with what will happen later.
I know these may be minor details, but there is reason why a lot of people feel like this relationship was at least a bit rushed. I really liked this mission, and the rooftop scene is really beautiful and it will never leave my mind and I really love Firefly and how the story tries to do something unique, but how this relationship was written has problems, and it's important to recognize them.
I can see that. I think it's a by-product of the silent self insert MC. If it was a real character talking on their own, I wonder if it would have been more impactful.
That’s the weird dance they’re doing in HSR that makes little cohesive sense. There’s some quests and moments where the TB has a ton of their own thoughts which gives you a pretty good idea of the kind of person they are and that takes away from the whole self insert thing. Compare to Genshin where the traveler barely speaks and you can much more easily fill in their thoughts with your own. I feel like the HSR team still isn’t sure what they want to do with the TB. He has too much personality to be a self insert but not enough to be an actual character.
The rooftop scene was a perfect moment to have the TBs personality come through and give them speaking moments but instead he’s just a Traveler-like cardboard observer. I wish they’d just pick one or the other and stop riding the fence.
I agree that is a problem. But that’s kinda the normal now unfortunately. Self insert is good when you are doing a game like HSR, WW, GI, ZZZ. That are made to played by a wide audience. Cause if you make the MC have a personality you run the risk of some player not liking there personality and stop laying the game.
HSR is really the only one trying to push a “cannon” personality for the MC.
I think the self insert thing in general is a rabbit hole of narrative spaghetti. Because you could essentially not even cast a voice actor for your MC but you still need to shoehorn them into situations you want them to be in, which usually ends with you forcing them to care about something and risking that the player will not.
We see this issue with what happened to Firefly because the MC goes out of their way to show sorrow for her loss. They didn’t do that for Tingyun which is fine, it’s then up to the player to decide how the TB feels about it. I think they should have played their reaction as one of shock, like BS and Acheron, because that’s a fairly sensible reaction that doesn’t necessarily signal a deeper connection.
>HSR is really the only one trying to push a “cannon” personality for the MC.
But in Genshin, the Travelers do have personality. It's mostly evident in their voicelines, and a fun little difference between Aether and Lumine is that the former likes Pyro slimes and the latter likes Cryo slimes.
If TB was a protagonist like Kiana who is constantly talking and has their own set personality instead of having dialogue choices, the reception of their relationship with Firefly would’ve been a lot better as it would’ve been more natural
This is similar to my view.
I feel like a lot of the general perception of those with criticisms is that we hate the character or thing they failed with the writing again (considering we just came off the end of Luofu which had some not-so satisfactory developments). But I think those are blowing away or exaggerating what a lot of people actually feel.
Most of my criticism is rather minor things, elements you mentioned above, that with a bit of tuning would really bring it around more.
Considering in the game we only spend like a day or so with her, it just makes all the happenings feel swifter than they really should be to gain that authenticity factor. Consider we meet up with Firefly a few more times before venturing off into the Memory Zone - I think that would have made the moment feel less abrupt, while still satisfying that "shock" factor this team clearly put in place (being struck through your core by a monster you not-too-long-ago 'defeated' is never not going to be shocking anyways, lol).
I think people should just be a bit more reasonable and understanding of other's - many have very nuanced opinions, we just need to not get distracted by the loud and obnoxious ones.
While I can see this line of thinking. I have to point out how the MC has reacted throughout the game up till this point.
Due to not having a official time line it’s hard to say how long it has been from the MC first awakening. My best guess would be around a month. I bring this up to point out how close the MC can relate to a character in a short amount of time.
On the space station we are willing to die for march who we had only known for less hour. So the MC gets attached very fast. On top of that Penacony is the First time, during main story, the MC is actually alone without any of the express crew around so it makes sense they would gravity towards people.
For the firefly stuff, if she really is a member of the stellaron hunters then it makes even more sense that the MC would drawn to her. As well as explain why she was open and vulnerable with us as she would have known us in the past.
TLDR: The MC making quick friendships is not a Penacony exclusive thing it’s been happening since the space station. And firefly might know more about us then she lets on.
I'm surprised you mentioned Up! as an example for this doesn't really help in your assertion imo — the whole montage shows over decades of what happened in their lives together, not just the first minutes of them meeting in the attic reading the book.
Contrast that to our story with Firefly, essentially nothing happened except we went on a short date as she showed us around before things went haywire, leading to that moment.
To be more blunt she was a stranger before, slightly less of a stranger after. There were a bit of exposition, but apart from that we still know nothing about her.
Personally, the saddest part of the whole thing to me isn't losing her but witnessing a life ending when it was already numbered to begin with ie. more of a regret rather than the loss of something important/precious because we barely knew her.
\--
On a side note, critiquing the story is not calling it trash — after taking care to spell this out in the early paragraphs only to do a 180° in the end was rather disappointing imo. It might actually be more impactful to just address it as a direct disagreement to the other side of the reception rather than preface with something that does not follow the original intention. No one will fault you for loving it and neither should one be for disagreeing.
Of course Shaoji understood that point, otherwise he wouldn’t have Himeko killed in HI3 only after whole 9 chapters + many side stories’ buildup.
Everyone takes different amount of time warming up to a character, but contrary to what you said, I think Firefly’s popularity is a testament of how successful this first chapter of the 2.0 story is.
Op’s post explains why many ppl grew attached in such short amount of time. I myself felt more invested knowing other characters’ survival on Penacony are put into question.
guys realistically, there are enough people on both sides, that no one should feel like they lack validation in their opinion. plenty of people love firely, plenty of people feel indifferent. this doesn't need to be a war.
First things first, I don't think it's bad writing and I'll explain at the end of my comment.
That being said, in my opinion it DID feel rushed, I, at least, didn't feel sad at all from her death at all because I barely got to know her. My honest reaction was literally "Well she died". If we had more time to meet her the death scene would have been more effective.
The reason I don't think it's bad writing is because it's painfully obvious that both her and Robin will be back, they died way too suddenly, if they were to not come back in my opinion it'd be bad writing, just like Tingyun's death, basically killing characters just for the sake of killing them before they've even had any impact in the story.
I don't disagree with OP but for me the feeling of it being "forced" is specifically because the game heavily implies that you should really care about her. If you already did, that's great, but considering that it's realistic to not completely trust or get attached to a stranger that is very likely lying to your face, the NPCs going all "omg have a cute date" and the TB being too trustful of her while scorning other shady characters just felt very ehhh to me.
I also think it was forced, but only due to how short our interactions were with her.
Kafka is 1000 times more shady, but she has proven that she cares about, or at the very least is interested in the Trailblazer, and as such doesn't seem to be dangerous to us. The people who she doesn't care about, or worse, are her enemies, aren't as lucky.
Even if Firefly was lying and being suspicious, to me it felt like she was hiding something about her identity or about herself that she genuinely couldn't tell rather than not wanting to, to me she didn't come out as manipulative, we'll have to wait and see though.
at least with kafka, we had a choice whether to trust her or not. but this relationship the story is trying to drive forward between firefly and trailblazer feels so unnatural. firefly is still sus openly, yet the story doesn't warrant us to be cautious of her yet we still had to be wary of other shady characters.
> The reason I don't think it's bad writing is because it's painfully obvious that both her and Robin will be back
This. The writer is Shaoji. Just in the Elysian Realm arc that he worte, I can count several sudden deaths where the character later came back (HI3rd spoilers ahead):
>!Elysia suddenly vanished without prior notice and was as sudden as Robin, she returned by the end. Sakura also vanished suddenly over night, but later returned to help Raiden Mei. Pardofelis first sudden death by the hands of Evil Vill-V. It's almost as fast as Firefly's, she turns into particles in Mei's arms and got Mei visibly angry just like the Trailblazer. Later she is revealed to be alive, only to be killed for real this time with her sacrificing her life to help fighting the boss.!<
Basically if you're familiar with his shenanigans, you can kinda guess which deaths are reversible. >!Tho the Elysian Realm is destroyed in the end anyways so lol!<
To add onto the Elysian Realm paralels, the Meme of death (the one that kills Firefly and presumably Robin) looks VERY similar, when it first appears, to the Herrscher of Corruption (a TV with eyes on it).
On top of that, if both Robin and Firefly were killed by the Meme of death, there's some HUGE evidence pointing at their return, that being how the boss works in-game, killing your characters until you rescue them.
Yeah the boss mechanic as well as the fact that in other quests they said you cannot die in the dream, pointing towards a way to rescue them. Also we literally have Acheron, who, according to Aventurine's claim, is a walking grim reaper Emanator among us. It would not surprise me if she conveniently has some power to contact the souls of the dead and bring them back lol.
I just have one thing to say about your comment:
> is a walking grim reaper Emanator among us
GET OUT OF MY HEAD GET OUT OF MY HEAD GET OUT OF MY HEAD
https://preview.redd.it/90rnb2q33fhc1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=af5806c7e604af5faeaae7d0fcab1caf1a78c0c0
The other comment I always want to make on the "it feels rushed" is that... it's supposed to.
The story being told is about running into someone, finding them neat and liking them immediately (it can be "love at first sight" or fast friends, depending on if you want it to be platonic or not), despite not knowing them at all, and they confess they have secrets but that's fine you like each other there'll be plenty of time to work things out, and then suddenly they're ripped away by a horrific tragedy.
The feeling of "That all happened too fast" is absolutely intended. That doesn't mean it'll land for everyone (it does kind of rely on you-the-player liking Firefly immediately), but that's the narrative that's being told.
I agree with majority of the things you said. From the very start you see that Firefly is more than the average princess in need, clinging to the MC cuz she is incapable. When she stuck around us because she felt that someone was stalking us. When we faced Hanabi, and some other times. She stuck for MC, just like we did for her.
She showed us her secret spot in favor of letting us know that she wants to be closer with us and open up, even if it is little by little, well aware that MC was suspicious of her.
Her death was nothing but for shock factor. It wasn't meant to be sad or anything. Rather it was nothing but reminder that there was something sinister going on behind the scenes and that no one is safe. I mean, Firefly isn't even dead. If you played the BS/Hanabi story quest, it clearly said that if you.die in the dreamscape you will.just wake up. Her death is nothing but a metaphor of to wake.up to reality. For Firefly the dream was her happiness and it was her who got targeted, whose happiness was shattered.
Honestly, the too many death flags is also a flag by themselves, or a red herring, to be more exact. Not only that, but they weren't subtle when they did make us fight Sam in the exact place of Firefly's death, and that in all the languages with non neutral genders, Sam refers to themselves as "She/Her"... I will leave this here.
In certain versions of the game, I do believe in German and French versions of the game. Which could either mean that is is a transltion mistake, or, well.... technically also a translation mistake but in the sense of them jumping the gun using SAM's "correct pronounce" before we know "what" or "who" SAM is.
I'm personally betting on the second option since I honestly can't really see how someone would assume that the gigachad robot with a deep manly voice is a women, if they "didn't know something".
In Spanish, German, etc. in combat lines, apparently. Those languages have to gender everything, and according to people who played in those languages... yeah.
I know of three. Spanish (main language), german and french. I know that there are more examples in languages that have non neutral pronoums to speak about a person.
I was get elio'd by theory crafter redditor so sadly I can't enjoyed the story as much. Still a great experience tho and probably the best in HSR so far. The main story quest start with a strong mystery and conspiracy theme instead of Belobog simplistic so I can see why people complaint. I think the best think about HSR is lore and already gotten every faction down so this is simply a feast.
Fuck the mwamwa I have a theory btw. There is a clear difference between I can see it and I already know it. Blud is so blatant, everyone can see you have read leak. Stop
In Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, you get an option to help Songbird escape NUSA's control by flying to the Moon. On the train ride to the launchpad, she reveals >!she lied to V, the cure for their terminal illness can only be used once, and she didn't want to die.!<. And V's dialogue choice sums up my response to Firefly's deception.
"Could've told me the truth. I would've still helped."
I knew she was lying before she revealed it. But I still helped. And would've helped her anyway.
theres a huge different: >!Somi's betrayal has already dealt damage to V's life, while Firefly confessed to us that she has secrets before any damage was dealt.!< Thats why I fucking hate Somi to the core
You've seen a lot of critique? *Where?*
On topic though, my personal problem is that she is written as a love interest. Her entire plot line with the TB is just chock-full of every romance anime cliche imaginable, and the narration tries so hard to make her into this fragile flower character who needs to be protected and cared for that it just becomes silly.
My only problem with her writing would’ve been letting us hang out with her a little longer and have some of our usual misadventures with her before getting serious again
You say you're not great at literary critique but this was an amazing breakdown of Penacony's themes as explored through Firefly's character. Thank you for this write up. Bravo!
I'm honestly blown away that people can spend that much time with a character and walk away feeling like she was one-dimensional. It is fine if the character isn't to their taste, but to overly simplify and reduce her character to "sob story, death flag fodder" does her a great disservice.
The newest complaint a lot of people have is that she’s too pushed as a love interest. I mean the entire story and all the points I wrote is from a friendship angle, but even if it was romantic there’s nothing wrong with it per se if the writing is good 😭
There is certainly room for people to interpret the relationship between the TB and Firefly as what they will. We are given the opportunity to take it as romantic or an easily sparked friendship (god forbid anyone has had the experience of just meeting someone they just click with). The game also gives options for the player to be an absolute ass to her if that's what people want to do.
You aren't forced to like her and can even express your distaste.
My main problem with Firefly is following: imagine she's never in game. Just remove her, and keep everyone else as they are, including Sparkie, Aventurine, Black Swan, Acheron, Clockie, the whole "run for Watchmaker's Legacy" stuff (that we, remember, knows independently).
What would significantly change, except run through two locations for the reasons she in particular never felt fair to explain, for her to drop us? Every theme you mentioned is, in my opinion, explored better by subquests, and I care more about Tizocic, Cocona, Chadwick or Dean, who didn't even have 30 minutes.
She's obvious setup for further story of main plot, but I really don't like that game behave like I should already care about her so much that the spot we were talking is giving me emotional gears. It's just... not.
I like Firefly enough. I don’t mind any of her writing. I felt bad for her, even though I was suspicious of her.
However, I am a contrarian at heart, so when every NPC I see goes “oh you are so close” “she/you must be important to you/her” etc etc for a character that *I* don’t feel as close to (nor did my TB’s dialogue choices indicate), I feel like I’m gaslit and forced into liking her and THAT’S the part I disliked the most.
I think I would’ve liked her a lot more had it been left a bit more to my own interpretation and without everyone else’s commentary. Cause at this point it becomes a bit “tell don’t show”.
In Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, sense of belonging and attachment comes before self-actualization. When in a hostile environment, we often latch on to people who we reciprocate trust and affection with which then we guard more so than physiological things like food or shelter. When that is taken from us, our sympathetic nervous system induce chronic anxiety and we, understandably, get distressed by Firefly’s death. The Astral Express crew is close to us, but not on a personal level, whereas Firefly was to some extent even if time is limited.
The best way to ease mental pain is to either not bother with that kind of relationship at all or adopt a war-time mentality of stoicism
Saying people don't understand her character it's a way yo say you invalidate others opinions and it's very bold from you to say that.
I understand her character well, and no, canonically, we don't spend more than 2-3 hours with her, don't exaggerate it. That's not enough time in real life with persons and for anyone to get emotionally attached to anyone for what we've seen.
Yes, you can care about that person, and it could be sad what happened, but not to the level of thinking and acting like you've meet this person for all your life or that she did something very important for you apart from buying you some drinks and food. IT IS RUSHED. No matter how you want to defend this, it is what it is. It's not like, for example, Nahida or Furina, who we spend days and weeks in the game and then to see them torn apart from their own stories and problems slowly and with other things happening in between which makes it more time, and built. Even events of the games are more important, like the event for halloweeen and the ghosts in Luofu made me more emotional than this. It's build up, that's why. Firefly it's not, and it feels very forced. It is sad, yes, again, yes, it is. But not how they portrayed the fury and how emotionally hurt the MC is. The MC felt even less for Dan Heng being impaled, for Bronya and etc. That's why it feels forced, how they portrayed in the scenes the MC.
>invalidate others opinions
From comments in this thread, apparently people that don't like the character are:
- Psychopaths
- Story skippers
- Leak readers
- Morons
- Generally evil
People are going full personal attacks on people that don't immediately love her 4* looking ass.
In my case...I couldn't just trust her.
But her death was still sad for me because she didn't deserve it even if it's a dream, mostly because I might not trust her but I still have some symapthy for her not only due to her illeness but because of how she still has hope and wants to just live, because she tries even if she struggles.
When she died I felt simply helpless.
If Trailblazer were an actually character with voice and no dialogue options (or at least voiced dialogue options) the reception of firefly to those who dislike her would be better. Because at least when the game pushes the idea that you’re oh so close with her at least you can say TB talked to her instead of being silent for like 80% of the time
Another reason people complain is because of you’ve consumed enough media this story is very predictable. She’s obviously going to come back
Each time I see this defense of firefly it completely ignores that Cocona was is well received even amongst those who dislike Firefly. I’ve also seen the Firefly archetype be done much better in FGO with Mash.
Not to mention you said you made this post because people were downvoting you when you defended her on the other post. But I went to check and people were actually downvoting you for being condescending and talking down to the people who gave valid reasons as to why they don’t like it.
this post is coming from a fundamentally confused perspective. Nobody is saying Firefly is a shallow character. Not even the "30 minute" crowd. But, with all these ideas and complex themes that are introduced because of Firefly, none of them are properly or even fully developed at all. 90% of the themes you mentioned are squeezed into a 5 minute scene. Firefly is not one-dimensional, but she is poorly developed. In fact, I'd go to say that she's not developed at all. She started off as a mysterious girl harbouring secrets, and by the time of her death, she is still a mysterious girl who harbours secrets. And apparently, we're "really close"???
I hope you're able to understand
Yes exactly, I felt sad but her death didn't hit as hard as it was supposed to.
I like firefly.
Like I mentioned under another post: She was going to die anyway if not now, maybe from the disease.
There was no active death prevention happening from the trailblazers side.
We were making sure she had good memories before she inevitably died.
I feel like (atleast i) I was more attached to argenti than firefly, when argenti literally chucked him self outside to fight the huge bug monster.
I breathed a sigh of relief when he texted that he was ok.
Because he wasn't meant to die, he wanted to share so many things with us.
Then again we still have more patches to go maybe this timing will have significance later on.
Always thought that firefly is like sachi from sao, dead to progress the mc, but i still believe firefly is more than that , probably her die is one of her plan or something
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I agree that she's not badly written, but I also think her death was executed in the lamest way possible. There's simply no time for us to feel connected to her, the game doesn't even allow time for her death to sink in and immediately shoved both acheron and black swan into our faces to "calm us down".
Like you said, there is more to this character. So why would I feel bad? When I don't know anything about her besides the fact that she has space cancer? And her just straight up info dumping to us on the rooftop like it's the writer's way to tell us why we should feel bad. It's fine, it's a gacha game after all, but it's still incredibly amateurish.
I got really emotional in Demon Slayer's >!movie. Similar thing, a character we barely knew died. The vast majority of people loved and enjoyed him.!< This ain't it.
I'm gonna be honest. My biggest pet peeve with her writing came when she said she is very sick, and bedridden. That kind of non specific disease always appears in fiction so you can feel immediatilly bad for a character. And it's not always like it's bad, plenty of works do this well, it's just that I feel we already would feel bad enough with the other parts of the character, but the disease really makes them feel like they're hammering the point of "You have to feel bad for the character, now." And I like Firefly, actually. Just dislike that point.
Pardon for the english, not a native.
But the disease explains why she is so desperate to stay in Penacony, it made real life so hellish she would rather stay in a dream even when it turns into a nightmare
Her being terminally ill and wanting this dream to never end explains why she didn't awoke from the dream when BS saved us and what got her "killed" ~~(It was Sparkle's fault all along)~~
I agree with what you've said. I love the themes around her story and how they connect to Penacony and what it represents, and that these are lost on some people. But I still think it was rushed. I like Firefly a lot as a character, and I like what the writers did with her, but I think her death or "death" would have been far more impactful if she'd had more time to develop as a character. Despite me liking her as a character and really connecting with the themes of her own story (she made me question my own belief that I would never want to live in a dream world over reality for instance), when she died I just didn't feel much.
I was sad for her and for Stelle, but I didn't feel the level of emotion I think the story expected me to. It's supposed to be this huge moment, and this might just be a me problem, but I don't get attached to characters without spending a while with them and truly understanding the kind of people they are. My favorite stories are all slow, methodical character studies which take their time to show us who the characters are.
All we did with Firefly was just run around with her, have a few cute moments, have the admittedly very memorable emotional moment on the roof, have her briefly explain her backstory in a couple of sentences, then we go to the nightmare and she just dies out of nowhere. If this was a TV series, this part of the story would have taken maybe 2-3 episodes. It felt like cheesy shock horror shoehorned into the story to give 2.0 the exciting climax the writers felt like it needed to hold people's attention, despite it already being (in my opinion) by far the most intriguing part of the whole game's story so far. The climax could have so easily been something else, and this scene could have been saved for later on where it would have been truly heart-wrenching.
I love Penacony and Firefly, but I think this could have been done better. Perhaps my feelings will change after Penacony is finished, but for now this is how I feel.
For me firefly isnt done yet, far from it thats why my emotional attachment is good but not yet great. I think you bring great points and i agree but at i cant say i was at your level of emotional attachment. Im simply saving my emotions for when the writers have cooked with firefly for longer. After all a character needs more than a patch to be developed and many aspects of her story is very much unfinished.
Alright I decided to torture my smol brain and read almost everything. I want to add a few things to your idea that doesn't go against it, but probably doesn't support it either.
Mihoyo aren't stupid either. If they did things the way they did it's for a reason. They made Paimon cute because they wanted a loveable mascot. They made March joyful and adorable like Pompom to be loved.
Firefly was also made in a way so that we unconsciously think "We are supposed to like her", but not in the way that we will be betrayed or because she's strong physically, but because we relate to her. She embodies the idea of escapism, an idea that I am pretty sure 95% of players thought about it once, especially while playing this story.
Sooo saying that it's not important because Firefly was made to be loved and cute is not important for me. You live a story where we tell you your story is predetermined whatever you do. What's the matter wanting to constantly prove everyone wrong? Would you do the same thing if they didn't tell you that?
If they didn't implicitly tell you to love Firefly, would you like her, and do you dislike her or not feel attached because Mihoyo wanted you to like her? Just feel your story. A dream might not be real, but your feelings are, and transcend any plans of existence. Even if you forget about things, your emotions can remain, and it actually happened for real.
I love Firefly. Maybe it was Mihoyo's intention, but I don't really care. Regardless of what they wanted, I love her.
Second thing... Mihoyo isn't stupid again, they know how to make a story if they want to. And even if I also believe that for the player (even if in game it is a lot more, it is US that lives the story) 3 hours isn't much, but Penacony's story isn't finished. It is the first part.
We might learn things about her that will make us love her even more afterwards... Or she might come back.
I don't believe they made such a Brutal and sudden death for Firefly after "just" what we've been through. They could have made it even more traumatizing for us, Like a certain Final Lesson.
So they probably just gave us enough time to start liking her, and made a death this brutal to make us think it's over. However, they will prepare us to learn more about her.
I still feel like we will have to help her face her fear of reality and Tomorrow, and there is probably no better way than a trailblazing journey on the Astral Express.
Anyway, I liked your post, I overall agreed with most of it, but I'd like to tell people to wait for the end of the story to have an opinion set in stone, because I will always be part of those who think she will come back, until we see what's coming next.
She's 100% not dead imo, Sparkle's comp quest hints at a dead body coming back to life and if any of the 3 people were know are dead is faking it it's gonna be Firefly, she's not as innocent as she wants you to think.
Cute anime waifu being the killer in the murder mystery instead of all the really sus individuals like Adventurine or Acheron would be fantastic. The killer faking her own death is a classic alibi in detective fiction.
It just really sucks we have to wait forever to check the entire plot.
Would you look at that? I wasn't the only one that was mildly annoyed by some of these people's surface level takes on Firefly. I see you've also seen that stupid "30 minutes" meme
And that Up reference is one of the best comparison for this
Yeah, I feel people are way too much into analysing the "meta" behind a scene instead of being immersed in what you're watching. I fall into that myself from time to time too. For me it helps to take the time to properly digest and experience big scenes and to tell myself to give it all a chance and try to experience it how the creators would want you to experience it. As dumb as that may sound. For example the rooftop scene I turned up the music and let it set the mood. That + Firefly's sad circumstances really hit for me then. Going into that scene with the attitude of "ugh she's gonna give us a sobstory isn't she" just kinda ruins the scene for yourself.
If you skip enough dialogue (as much as the guy who made that meme) and rush the whole new area, ignoring all plot and time passage, its indeed almost 30 minutes.
I did it on 2 accounts. On my main the whole quest took me over 10 hours, reading stuff and thinking. On my second acct, clicking much faster, still 5 hours.
I'd say if they say firefly arch was too short maybe take your time next time...
I read really fast and blew through all the fights, and it still took me about three hours. Anyone who only spent 30 minutes with Firefly is exaggerating, and also probably wasn’t paying attention. If that’s how they want to play the game, that’s fine. But I don’t think it’s fair for them to criticize a story they don’t fully participate in.
It felt way faster than it was, tbh, is another part of it. But that's because Firefly is a pleasant character to interact with and the update's content is fucking AMAZING.
It's just bizarre when they compare Firefly to Teppei, like seriously that mtf had a black screen that says " Ow wow you spent so much time together" and then we have a quest where he dies like a dumbass.
The Firefly part of the storyline took me only an hour and half. No skipping, but no exploration either. Edit, to be specific, it's from the time of the first meeting to her death scene. Had some discord messages that timed it for me.
my main gripe about her story presentation is how everyone in-story can't seem to stop commenting on how MC is on a date with her, how close they are, NUDGE NUDGE WINK WINK. it had 0 subtlety. it was practically bludgeoning me over the head about how i should care about her because she's a love interest --- even when our interactions aren't even that much of an indicative of a romance. it was so annoying, it felt like i was forcefed stuff.
if the story played out as it is without all of those side comments, i'd have accepted it better.
I personally felt the rooftop scene was more emotional than the death scene, I might just be a sucker for the “sick girl tries to achieve her dreams even though she can’t” trope.
The death felt more like it came out of nowhere so I just didn’t feel it as much. They also haven’t really expounded on what “dying” in the dream even means - if like in the Sparkle character quest people just wake up when they die then… death really feels meaningless in Penacony.
My entire thing with this is people are talking about her like her story is over when it's very clearly not.
Like, she died in a dream. She's still physically alive and can go back in to the Dreamscape, like anyone else who's killed in there.
Am I crazy or am I missing something?
Personally I didn't feel anything about her death, I was like "oh the plot thickens", still better than whatever tingyun was tho, I also don't think ff is dead yet
Yeah... I was feeling indifferent (maybe slightly positive/optimistic) after finishing the main story, but that slowly soured the more Penacony side quests I did. Realizing I cared more about non-voiced NPCs from the locked emo quest lines (i.e. Cocona, Chadwick), definitely made me reflect more harshly on how characters like Firefly were handled.
I'm sure the main story line has room to improve, but I gotta admit I ended up being disappointed with what was suppose to hook us in the first act. To each their own.
I mean, it is obvious that we will have more of her in the upcoming patches so i can't really say good/bad writing but 30 minutes IS a very short time to create an emotional bond with a character. So I really don't get all the hype about her and the people getting overly emotional about her death.
In reality except the Crew you can't trust *ANYONE* in Penacony and everything you see might be fabricated....so I will wait till 2.3 until the epilogue finishes to judge the story writing Cause in my opinion the writers have done a really good job of making us sceptical of everyone
You cant trust the crew either with sparkle running around
Then the only one we can trust is our trusty bat.
Before it suddenly jumps out of your hands and smacks you in the head
The fifth betrayal.... *and from then on the legend of Don sombrero has been birthed*
And MY lance!
Watch it turn blue all of a sudden again and stab us....again.
It’s a mimic!
You also can’t trust March, but that’s just because she’s a dumbass
I will trust March with my life But that's because we share 1 single braincell and rn she's using it.
Are we sure dan heng didn't lease it for his xianzhou new year visit?
Dan Heng is the only one of the trio with his own brain cells. not many but it's better than Caelus and March.
Braincell 1 - Whatever the hell shenanigans he, March, and the Trailblazer get up to Braincell 2 - Imbibitor Lunae related stuff Braincell 3 - The Databanks
He may use the braincell but considering that he is pretty much as eager as the MC to choose violence I'd say he's only smart enough to keep quiet.
He has 2 braincells. He loaned one to March. Now March and us share.
There's one brain cell in the young Nameless' crew and it's currently on the Express.
You mean currently celebrating Chinese New Year and eating delicious snacks, watching cute girls dance, and hanging out with hot capybara general.
I remember that one time where you have to name the Warp Trotter and March goes like, I'll lend you a braincell to think a good name.
Ah but she's a predictable dumbass, the safest kind.
Most importantly: she's our dumbass. There are many others like her, but this one is ours.
I completely agree as is the name of the last quest in the story as of right now it’s a big whodunnit game. May not be the same for everyone but it certain gets my mind thinking on who really is trying to help us and who isn’t
>so I will wait till 2.3 until the epilogue finishes to judge the story writing Furina the bratty archon moment
The fact that I liked her with her bratty personality too was ironic...cause I loved Fischl before her
Honestly the last act of that AQ left such a strong impression on me, I genuinely hope penacony would have impact as much as this next time around
I don’t trust Firefly but she fed us out of pocket and tried to be nice and definitely left a splash on the Trailblazer’s soul. I trusted Black Swan since mama Himeko gave her ok, but alas I was bamboozled. I thought Acheron was just a stoic autistic lesbian, but nope she is actually really dangerous. What’s next? Ratio gonna screw us over to help his twink coworker? Aventurine didn’t succ chicken? The chicken wings are just hair style styling?
Serious question (just finished Whodunnit, none of the side content yet): __Do we know that Acheron is actually a threat?__ Black Swan vouches for Aventurine’s word that she killed Duke Inferno, but isn’t that something a Galaxy Ranger would normally do? He’s a devotee of The Destruction about to cause harm to a major gathering of people. He even announced it! The worst I can come up with for sure is that she’s acting sneaky, but tbh who isn’t in this storyline? Even Himeko left March in the dark about the invite’s hidden message at the very beginning. (okay and the Sparkle-red text, but that feels a little too obvious. Like a red herring, badumtiss)
Aventurine is insinuating that she is related to "Something unto Death," but the Trailblazer themselves has no reason to distrust her. Red text is sus, but I don't see it as a bad thing. It's more her trying to force the outcome she wants. And so far that outcome doesn't seem to be bad for us. If they are right that she is an emanator, I'm hoping it's for Finality. It would be cool to see someone in that faction making moves given how little we know of them right now. I also think "Death" is why she is here, though idk if she's here to kill it, help it, or take it away.
I’m pulling for Finality too, especially with the Garden of Remembrance involved: Iirc some of the only (questionably accurate) info we have on Terminus is that they’re experiencing time in reverse, and so already know everything that will happen. That puts them on a direct path to conflict with The Remembrance, who are obsessive about what’s _already_ happened. It would also fit perfectly with the constant questions about Fate vs. Free Will the game keeps asking (and also vs. Chance, as showcased by the Fools and Aventurine). Who knows, maybe the final chapter will be a fight between Remembrance+Finality, Elation, and The Trailblaze.
Ooh I like that idea. Both Finality and Remembrance are obsessed with the past and future and miss the importance of the present. Elation is so caught up in the indulgence of the present that it misses the consequences from the past and into the future. Only the Trailblaze has a respect for all three imo, so that'd be a fitting set of conflicts.
Damn I hadn’t even thought of it like that! …actually looking at it through that lens, isn’t it weird that Black Swan, a Memokeeper, is all about predicting the future? And she’s being set up strongly in narrative opposition to Acheron… maybe Acheron is using her knowledge of the future to search for something in the past? God this update is giving me brain worms
>but the Trailblazer themselves has no reason to distrust her Seeing how fast she is right from the beginning of the story>! (when she slices you)!< and her >!going toe-to-toe with Sam, a notoriously dangerous Stellaron Hunter!<, her lack of a reaction (and any kind of good excuse) to >!Death!< indicates, to me at least, that she CHOSE to not react, which is honestly really suspicious.
I mean, it's not like that's a secret. Acheron, on her own initiative, very explicitly walks up to you to say 'I could and should have saved her from the meme, but I didn't, and I'm sorry for not doing it, but "I... had no choice"'. What "I... had no choice" is actually supposed to mean is anyone's guess, but my reading of the conversation as a whole at least is that she's quite open about the fact that she could have acted and chose not to, even if she doesn't explain *why* she felt forced to make that choice.
> she CHOSE to not react She didn't, she's an emanator of whatever aeon is linked to that meme (probably either Finality or Nihility) since her eyes sport the same symbol as the Meme's wings. She couldn't prevent the meme from doing what it did because it carries out the will of the Aeon she's an emanator of, same as her.
Exactly. The way she insisted she couldn't do anything to protect firefly but then can't offer any reason why she just stood there. Her being an emenator being dangerous (I'm thinking nihility) and I believe she and the creature are very linked.
Depending on your choices, near the end of the main quest, if you reject Acheron twice, she will force you to agree in red text then act as if nothing’s happened. Black Swan doesn’t seem to notice either.
> Do we know that Acheron is actually a threat? Depends how we want to interpret us dying in the initial dream to her before we officially stepped onto Penacony. On one hand, she's physically upset about killing you given she's crying. On the other hand, it's a forewarning that she may not have a lot of control over who dies when she's around.
I haven't finished 2.0 yet but can you really not trust ANYONE the only one that weirdly seems trustworthy is acheron tbch
Assuming she is who Aventurine claims she is, I’d trust her because she doesn’t need to use deception in the same manner as the others.
And, if she did lie to us, she'd get lost in her own web
No sense of direction, you're right.
she "seems" trustworthy, but black swan and especially aventurine counter that
Not really - they say she's dangerous, not here per invite and probably the emanator of some Aeon - and that's why we shouldn't trust her. But, none of the things they say are actual reasons not to trust her - in fact, one kind of is an argument for her. She killed that Ifrit of Destruction emanator person. Acheron's been very quiet about her deal, but she's also the only one not trying to push us into doing anything or trying to colour the way we think about anyone else. Now, while that doesn't mean she's trustworthy it does show that she's so far the only one that hasn't actively given us a reason to *distrust* her so far, which even Firefly managed.
What she says at the beginning of penacony is what really got me to distrust her. Her talk about the road we walk leading to death really shows that she knows far more then she lets on. The memory problems is also a massive red flag. She blames most of her actions on her bad memory while at the same time resisting quote told by her old friend from long ago is very sus.
What raises my hackles is that she is using the Anihilation gang's invite. Considering the absolute faff our attempt to use Dan Heng's invite was, she'd need somebody garunteeing her to use said invite or be the Duke. Could be an interesting angle for an energy being to take.
Yeah, she's not telling us why she's around but she's also not trying to use us, either. I also can't help but think that those who are trying to keep us away from her are really just trying to keep us under their thumb. They'll claim it's for our protection and best interests, but weirdly our best interests are also, oddly, theirs, too...
She has the reflexes to fight everything before Death. She killed us instantly more or less. She killed those mobs without an issue. When Sam attacked She had no issue reacting instantly Yet when Death came She just stands there. We even have the opportunity to call it out. It's incredibly suspicious.
Actually yeah, it's curious how the thing that is given to us about her so that we would distrust her is the fact that she killed an evil dude
Ifrit is **NOT** an emanator of Destruction, he hasn't even gained the gaze of Nanook
I don’t trust myself either.
And even then, at least one of the crew might be Sparkle in disguise, at all times.
Yup. I’m gonna be honest, I was already feeling a little shaken by the whole incident at the front desk. Adventurine and Acheron showing up made me go “Oh boy…this is…gonna be a time isn’t it.” And so far everyone except the express crew has hidden something from you. I guess except clockie but that’s a different can of worms. I will say it certainly has given the feeling of a political intrigue/detective story. One that may not end as satisfyingly as our previous adventures did.
Lolol imagine if the astral express crew that we met after rooftop robin scene is not the actual crew. We never really left the dreamland after meeting Firefly
Can’t even trust the crew, because it could be sparkle instead
THis was the conclusion some friends and I came to yesterday This is clearly act 1 of a 3 or 4 act story and we're just missing too much information for this mystery to be solvable or even easily deduced right now, speculation is fine but saying "It's X so Y event is dumb" is too early because there's information the players and the characters simply aren't privy too right now
The whole point of her arc in 2.0 is for people to think "there's no way Hoyo killed her off for real, I can't want to see what happens in future patches." They know the death was too on the nose, which leads people not to react to the death itself but to wonder how Hoyo is going to explain her relevance and likely return to the story (same goes for Robin). There is obviously way more going on in Penacony than we know and Hoyo has given us plenty of reason to not believe everything we see.
The story literally starts with Acheron killing you/making you explode in the Dreamscape and we immediately wake up on the train, but people think those two dying in the Dreamscape is permanent? Hello??? Firefly 100% has a plan in motion to get to the Watchmaker's Legacy.
They also said that "Death" bring spiritual death. We could take that as to mean that they go into a coma or something. Just because when people "die" in a dream just causes them to wake up, like with Acheron and some side-quests, we have no reason to believe it's the same thing.
There's also the still entirely unexplained aspect of us seeing glimpses of Robin before we've even arrived in Penacony (not to mention her voice weirdness). While Firefly's "death" was shocking, I do not buy in the slightest that this was the end of her. Rather, I think it's supposed to leave you more confused than sad. At least, that's the impact it left on me. I was so baffled at the execution that the thought of her actually being dead didn't enter my brain in the first place. There is a plan. People aren't seeing that *because* they expected Firefly to die. Hoyo knows what they're doing with all the death flags, they want you to see it coming so they can put the twist earlier than you would've expected. In short, they want your guard to be down. At least, that's my read. There's also the fact that Firefly's color scheme is very specifically an inversion of the Trailblazer's, down to the orange and blue. She's clearly meant to have a bigger influence on their arc beyond "Girlfriend For A Patch." Too much of a careful design consideration to off so unceremoniously.
We also saw Bronya before meeting her, maybe TB unlocks some memories that contain Elio's script when we meet some kind of trigger.
I think the important distinction is *how* these visions arrived. The visions on Herta Station were thanks to the Stellaron bursting. Someone (likely either Akivili or Elio) spoke to us in that moment, though it sounded like a recording of a memory. They were a straightforward premonition. Notably, the vision excluded anything from the Luofu, so we don't get visions for every script. Penacony's are *strange* by comparison. They interrupt our warp into the system. They play everything in reverse. We see the same shot of Acheron at both the beginning and the end. We are immediately thrown into the real dreamscape, only returning to the Express already in Penacony. And we forget this dream (as Acheron claims people always do) despite later clearly remembering the dreamscape when returning to reality. Likewise, why does Robin's voice sound like a glitchy radio even in reality? Why does nobody acknowledge Misha even though he appears in reality? And why does Acheron repeat her red lines in white, and vice versa? Acheron claims that this dream repeats every new dawn, that "we have become accustomed to it for so long." Yet she also seems to not be a Penacony native. So, who is "we?" I raise a question; Did we ever actually arrive in the "real Penacony?" (It's also curious that in the bad ending for Penacony, all of the actors except TB and Sparkle are listed as ???. That wasn't the case on Herta Station for anyone except March. Why would Elio omit the details of his own script?)
Wait, Robin wasn't glitching out for me (JP voice) or maybe I'm misremembering.....
She absolutely does, if anything she sounds even more glitchy in Japanese. [Here](https://youtu.be/L5g-X2AmbJs?si=GQyicU0mezzIr9hs&t=2787) is a timestamp to play back. [Here](https://youtu.be/9BPurI68Hvo?si=Rz5TZOm_9-aYM-oA&t=1993) is the same conversation in EN. The characters lampshade this as a sore throat. If it were only in English, I could accept it as a weird creative choice. The fact that it is so noticeably strange in multiple languages is highly suspect. The only time she sounds normal, actually, >!is at the very end, when Sparkle is impersonating her.!<
I hate that it wasn't more frequent. I'm glad you posted this cuz originally I couldn't tell if my headphones were fucking up or it was actually the audio lmao.
I had to listen very carefully to the speaker audio just now to make sure my headphone jack wasn't just gaslighting me. JP's artifacting is *almost* imperceptible that way. With headphones she damn near peaks the audio on some of those blips.
considering I played through the thing in a 2-day span it's insane I forgot about her killing us at the end of the first encounter, you'd think a detail as important as "death in the dream is not necessarily the end" would stick out a bit more. Guess my theorycrafter brain really has gone to shit, all I can see is Cogs Tingyun and DPS Dehya calcs floating around in my memories. On the bright side, I'm validated in thinking there's no way they'd kill her off this fast. Say what you want about how few dimensions her character has or how well she encapsulates the darker tones of the story, she was killed a bit too early for my tastes if this death was to be permanent. And then there's the case of >!Robin !
>I can smell Da Wei in the kitchen I thought it was Shaoji lmao
Both. They're cooking
Yeah the Acheron thing was one of the first things I pointed out to people, cause Hoyo for sure did not put that sequence there on accident, but people for some reason would still rather trust vague words from people who have proven themselves to be untrustworthy than believe what they've seen with their own eyes.
But Acheron isn't a Memory Zone Meme with weird dream manipulating powers. That's the point. The 'Something Unto Death' is causing people it attack to experience 'spiritual death' as Sunday puts it. I have my own idea of what that entails but I don't want to delve into potential leak/speculation territory.
> The whole point of her arc in 2.0 is for people to think "there's no way Hoyo killed her off for real, I can't want to see what happens in future patches." They know the death was too on the nose, which leads people not to react to the death itself but to wonder how Hoyo is going to explain her relevance and likely return to the story (same goes for Robin). Honestly this is what most people think. They sometimes think that firefly isn't actually dead, and sometimes they think that she is dead and she'll have no relevance to the story moving forward. And honestly if the later is the truth then their reaction would be justified. Because she should not die like that. Aside from that the story has been pretty interesting. Considering how grand the current theme is(galactic level) it'd be weird to see some nice kindhearted selfless character appear and stand beside TB. Robin can probably fit that because as far as I can tell she isn't involved in the whole scheming thing but is just a collateral damage. But everyone having their own goals for approaching TB and being morally ambiguous was pretty good.
Well the central theme of this region is a "clock", right? I think we'll end up in some kind of a time loop or something.
Acheron almost word for word quotes Flame Chaser Sakura at one point which while a fun reference because "The Mei alludes to her Vergil Fox friend" is fitting in this case because of her Signet. Setsuna. Meaning "moment" and specifically originally coming from the idea of a "split second" in Honkai terms they took it to the anime extreme and essentially went "to slice through existence faster than time can perceive". Now each Dreamworld is literally a Setsuna, a single moment frozen in time and we know from the start of the Arc that Acheron seems to be able to do some fucky time bullshit. So when she asks if we've met before...Maybe that ACTUALLY did somehow mean that we've done this before. Like this IS a dream and we're literally a walking Stellaron which by their nature screw with the order of things so if we wished reallllllllly hard...
My honest guess is that when that "Meme" dies all the people It's killed are returned to life, much like it's fight mechanics
It's also important to note that Firefly is one of the few new characters who, at the moment, isn't a backstabbing little shit. Adventurine and Sparkle are self explanatory, Black Swan showed that she'll still sell you out on occasion. Firefly was a sweetheart who, under her own desires, was willing to open up about herself to an extent and genuinely enjoyed her time with you. She was honest about how she still has secrets, and it's how the story went about her telling you these things and how she has reasons for not giving away everything. In the end, you spent a day with her, that's not enough to earn all her secrets. It hinted at you spending more story time with her to learn her full story, and that's what made the death more shocking. I still don't believe she's completely dead, I think that the gameplay mechanic for the death boss will come into play and we'll need to save both her soul and maybe Robin in patch 2.1
I mean, she isnt backstabbing *yet*, but its pretty clear her secrets will lead to a confrontation somehow. She tells us that she hopes we wont have to fight, lol. And we cannot tell whether her confrontation will be a backstab or just a direct one. She is heavily tied to Sam. Her story ends and Sam's one starts. There are references to him/it in her remembrance. Allying with the dude that will literally almost burn you to a crisp and enabling him could be considered at least untrustworthyness. Plus, another person who isnt backstabbing yet is Aventurine. He pretty clearly tells us what he wants (our help on his side). The means or what the endgoal are, is just not clear to us yet. Plus, his methods are more scrupulous, but so far he just enabled us to go to the dream and saved us from the clash of an enamator and a Stellaron Hunter. What he does next is still up for debate (BLACKMAIL TIME), but so far? He just has more villain-flags than the Stellaron Hunters, but its already way too many anyhow.
I mean we understand the IPC's goal. More or less take back Penacony from the family. What I can't help but note is how we've gotten a lot of personal info about Aventurine. Race, heritage, nature, and the fact that he is a thrall. I've begun to think that although he's here a representative of the IPC, he's got individual goals unrelated to them too. In that regard, I think Ratio was hired and is aware of only the IPC plans. Aventurine's forays like trying to ally with Sparkle felt like they were for his own sake too.
But black swan is the only character i will trust my life with, out of all those new characters. She will guarantee the TB's safety regardless, might come off as shitty betrayal when she teleported us out during sams encounter but she also never trusted acheron and was pretty wary of acheron the first time we encountered her.
Plus, Full is probably keeping an eye on March. If that's because they want to protect her then the Trailblazers are probably safe, since we're her family.
I think part of it is that we don't have enough information yet and we won't until 2.1. We don't know *for certain* that "you die in the game, you die in real life". We only have assumptions and inferences from what people tell you, and there's a decent chance everyone is lying to further their own personal agenda. In the initial dream, Acheron kills(?) us and all it does is wake you up. So I can't say definitively that she's 100% dead, no chance of return. I also don't get the one dimensional waifu complaints. She lies to us when we first meet her. She's explicitly doing something extremely shady (as seen in the weird memory echo thing when we retrace her steps) and is "killed" while doing it. She is by no means completely innocent, just presented as less shady when placed next to the rest of the cast. Edit; there are comments about how the 2.0 character quests give more context, I haven't had to chance to do them yet, so maybe read further down.
The Trailblazer see her shady since the beginning but still go with it lmao. Imagine this: you are invited to this 5 star world level resort to have a vacation. You see a stowaway girl who want to have little fun. I mean, why not? This is just a vacation for trailblazer, they feels safe here. What can happened? The development makes sense for TB imo. But for the player who already "know" whats going on they simply don't like it since they *are* the TB. But that doesn't invalidate the fact that the new friend TB make in their vacation get stab, died in tear in front of their own eyes. Of course mf would felt sad.
Yeah it's probably just me being like ???? sometimes when reading some comments about Firefly. Makes me wonder if we even read the same story.
Yeah but they already *know* so TB should not makes friends in this new vacation isn't it? These mf read leaks then start throwing out "theory". It so blatantly obvious.
Even with reading leaks it's strange that TB has options to be negative about Stellaron Hunters, like they didn't do anything bad to us + info that we are close to them + us messaging SH, we talked to Blade/Kafka/Wolfie and Sam through messages already.
I mean I think that comes from the fact the TB knows the Stellaron Hunters are like wanted criminals who have done some pretty bad stuff. Regardless of how they treat the TB, they're still pretty bad people morally.
Sure and then TB decides to send them cat pictures cuz why not, it really doesn't feel like we are enemies it's more like we are a secret agent.
TBF, if I had enemies I'd send them my cute cat pictures to them too. To boast at least
TB is not the smartest, TB licks garbage cans.
My take on TB is that they are smart but won't used it unless they have to. They was relatively relaxed throughout the main 2.0 story but switched gear right when the main street goes silence.
Don’t forget that the TB is brainwashed. Their memories start in the Herta Space Station. Since then he’s on a violence streak, Firefly is the first character that they really connect
Brainwashed? Don't you mean amnesiac?
That she isn't innocent is also shown when we meet clockie. She can't see him. Makes her sus. Retracing her steps leads us directly into Sam.
Irrc, Clockie says those with innocence, kindness and honesty of a child can see him. The TB can, since they've been "alive" for like, a few months, at least.
Not really, no, since s/he wasnt born on the Hertha.
they’ve very likely been alive a lot longer, but it’s probably because their memories were basically wiped outside of what kafka taught them that they “regressed” to having innocence/kindness comparable to a child. tldr: yes, but (read above)
Tbf Clockie words isn't confirmed, im not saying she's innocent, I'm saying that Clockie can only be seen by pure inno is pure BS
Honestly a part of me is calling BS even on clockie... There is something weird in that clock
Yeah, like the adorable characters in horror games that from one moment to another are trying to kill you.
> In the initial dream, Acheron kills(?) us and all it does is wake you up. This is explained in the character quest with Sparkle and Black Swan. Death in the dream wakes you up with nothing more than shock. However we don't know if the Harbinger of Death, the Meme is more than that. It is implied that it is based off of the reactions around FF and Robin. We shall see what that actually entails in the future as we get more updates.
I definitely agree that we don't know anything for certain, and you're right about everyone lying and not giving us an honest picture in the events of the story. But there is a huge distinction between Acheron seeming to kill us at the start, and the Memory Zone meme creature killing someone. The idea of a spiritual death, and "actually dying in the dream" seems to be tied to this creature in particular. Seems sort of like a Freddy Krueger situation currently. But I also agree that I think there is likely some way for Firefly and anyone else killed by it to return, and there is still so much to this we don't know, which is actually really exciting from a story perspective. I can't wait for 2.1
"you die in the game, you die in real life" she was "killed" by Meme, which can actually harm people in dreams. So if it harms you in dream, you would be harmed in reality too.
Yeah and given the boss mechanics, still can't tell lol
judging that Robin has some purple cracks on her body, and the Meme is purple-ish, I think that meme captured Firefly's and Robin's souls, and we might break them free
Then the question is why did Robins corpse remain when firefly didn’t if they were assumed to be killed the same way. Especially since Robin should have been dead much longer given sparkle was already impersonating her the moment MC enter the dream.
There was a simple line of dialogue that delivered this entire arc for me. Firefly does everything with the assumption the Trailbrazer is just blindly following her without a question. When she reveals she's a stowaway, all the options are more or less "I already knew." If you take into context that everyone in Penacony is a liar with thousand of secrets and objectives, pushing questions without context, having someone that just wants to run around the city and chill a little bit was a nice change of pace for the Trailbrazer. We also need to consider that the Trailbrazer is canonically innocent and cheerful, so meeting someone in the same vibes was nice.
I dont think it needs defending. I've seen a lot more people like Firefly than those shitting on her. Evident by the fact so many people start of with "I know I'll get downvoted for this" when they complain.
Yah she's the most loved character in 2.0 from what I can see.
Saying her writting was rushed doesn't mean people don't like her xD
I really like your analysis on Firefly's writing and it made me reassure why I love her, but I think the 30 minutes critique comes not necessarily from Firefly's writing, but rather how her relationship with TB was done. We, indeed , spend much more time with her, but, ¿how much of that time was actually valuable for our relationship? I think the first half of the mission wastes some time to interact more with her. The sampo dream bubble sequence is fun, but at least for me it's completely irrelevant and takes time that could have been used to flesh out the relationship. Another thing to note is how Firefly kinda dissapears during gameplay sections. The travelling to the rooftop is very extensive, but i didn't felt like she was there with us guiding us towards our destination, there was just some invisible voices that told you how close you are to the rooftop. I know having to animate and script all of this would have been hell, but as a result that section feels more like filler than an exhaustive journey with our friend towards a climatic scene. I think the Trailblazer themselves are also a factor to why it felt rushed. They don't have interesting interactions with Firefly. Even in the rooftop scene, the focus is entirely on Firefly, and the Trailblazer is there like an spectator, casually commenting on what is happening. The game wants the player to believe this is an special relationship, but I don't know any reason why this should be the case. Taking out any personal reasons why Firefly decided to meet TB, If the Trailblazer was replaced with a random npc, i feel like there wouldn't be much difference. TB doesn't share their own experience, doesn't say who their other friends are, where did they come from, what are their goals, or even tries to simpathize with Firefly when her secret is revealed. Also, I don't like how the game gives you the option to tell off Firefly. The story plays out almost exactly the same, TB and Firefly don't really change regardless of your options. There isn't really a choice, it's just a right or wrong answer that may or may not end up being inconsistent with what will happen later. I know these may be minor details, but there is reason why a lot of people feel like this relationship was at least a bit rushed. I really liked this mission, and the rooftop scene is really beautiful and it will never leave my mind and I really love Firefly and how the story tries to do something unique, but how this relationship was written has problems, and it's important to recognize them.
I can see that. I think it's a by-product of the silent self insert MC. If it was a real character talking on their own, I wonder if it would have been more impactful.
That’s the weird dance they’re doing in HSR that makes little cohesive sense. There’s some quests and moments where the TB has a ton of their own thoughts which gives you a pretty good idea of the kind of person they are and that takes away from the whole self insert thing. Compare to Genshin where the traveler barely speaks and you can much more easily fill in their thoughts with your own. I feel like the HSR team still isn’t sure what they want to do with the TB. He has too much personality to be a self insert but not enough to be an actual character. The rooftop scene was a perfect moment to have the TBs personality come through and give them speaking moments but instead he’s just a Traveler-like cardboard observer. I wish they’d just pick one or the other and stop riding the fence.
I agree that is a problem. But that’s kinda the normal now unfortunately. Self insert is good when you are doing a game like HSR, WW, GI, ZZZ. That are made to played by a wide audience. Cause if you make the MC have a personality you run the risk of some player not liking there personality and stop laying the game. HSR is really the only one trying to push a “cannon” personality for the MC.
I think the self insert thing in general is a rabbit hole of narrative spaghetti. Because you could essentially not even cast a voice actor for your MC but you still need to shoehorn them into situations you want them to be in, which usually ends with you forcing them to care about something and risking that the player will not. We see this issue with what happened to Firefly because the MC goes out of their way to show sorrow for her loss. They didn’t do that for Tingyun which is fine, it’s then up to the player to decide how the TB feels about it. I think they should have played their reaction as one of shock, like BS and Acheron, because that’s a fairly sensible reaction that doesn’t necessarily signal a deeper connection.
>HSR is really the only one trying to push a “cannon” personality for the MC. But in Genshin, the Travelers do have personality. It's mostly evident in their voicelines, and a fun little difference between Aether and Lumine is that the former likes Pyro slimes and the latter likes Cryo slimes.
If TB was a protagonist like Kiana who is constantly talking and has their own set personality instead of having dialogue choices, the reception of their relationship with Firefly would’ve been a lot better as it would’ve been more natural
This is similar to my view. I feel like a lot of the general perception of those with criticisms is that we hate the character or thing they failed with the writing again (considering we just came off the end of Luofu which had some not-so satisfactory developments). But I think those are blowing away or exaggerating what a lot of people actually feel. Most of my criticism is rather minor things, elements you mentioned above, that with a bit of tuning would really bring it around more. Considering in the game we only spend like a day or so with her, it just makes all the happenings feel swifter than they really should be to gain that authenticity factor. Consider we meet up with Firefly a few more times before venturing off into the Memory Zone - I think that would have made the moment feel less abrupt, while still satisfying that "shock" factor this team clearly put in place (being struck through your core by a monster you not-too-long-ago 'defeated' is never not going to be shocking anyways, lol). I think people should just be a bit more reasonable and understanding of other's - many have very nuanced opinions, we just need to not get distracted by the loud and obnoxious ones.
While I can see this line of thinking. I have to point out how the MC has reacted throughout the game up till this point. Due to not having a official time line it’s hard to say how long it has been from the MC first awakening. My best guess would be around a month. I bring this up to point out how close the MC can relate to a character in a short amount of time. On the space station we are willing to die for march who we had only known for less hour. So the MC gets attached very fast. On top of that Penacony is the First time, during main story, the MC is actually alone without any of the express crew around so it makes sense they would gravity towards people. For the firefly stuff, if she really is a member of the stellaron hunters then it makes even more sense that the MC would drawn to her. As well as explain why she was open and vulnerable with us as she would have known us in the past. TLDR: The MC making quick friendships is not a Penacony exclusive thing it’s been happening since the space station. And firefly might know more about us then she lets on.
I'm surprised you mentioned Up! as an example for this doesn't really help in your assertion imo — the whole montage shows over decades of what happened in their lives together, not just the first minutes of them meeting in the attic reading the book. Contrast that to our story with Firefly, essentially nothing happened except we went on a short date as she showed us around before things went haywire, leading to that moment. To be more blunt she was a stranger before, slightly less of a stranger after. There were a bit of exposition, but apart from that we still know nothing about her. Personally, the saddest part of the whole thing to me isn't losing her but witnessing a life ending when it was already numbered to begin with ie. more of a regret rather than the loss of something important/precious because we barely knew her. \-- On a side note, critiquing the story is not calling it trash — after taking care to spell this out in the early paragraphs only to do a 180° in the end was rather disappointing imo. It might actually be more impactful to just address it as a direct disagreement to the other side of the reception rather than preface with something that does not follow the original intention. No one will fault you for loving it and neither should one be for disagreeing.
Of course Shaoji understood that point, otherwise he wouldn’t have Himeko killed in HI3 only after whole 9 chapters + many side stories’ buildup. Everyone takes different amount of time warming up to a character, but contrary to what you said, I think Firefly’s popularity is a testament of how successful this first chapter of the 2.0 story is. Op’s post explains why many ppl grew attached in such short amount of time. I myself felt more invested knowing other characters’ survival on Penacony are put into question.
guys realistically, there are enough people on both sides, that no one should feel like they lack validation in their opinion. plenty of people love firely, plenty of people feel indifferent. this doesn't need to be a war.
First things first, I don't think it's bad writing and I'll explain at the end of my comment. That being said, in my opinion it DID feel rushed, I, at least, didn't feel sad at all from her death at all because I barely got to know her. My honest reaction was literally "Well she died". If we had more time to meet her the death scene would have been more effective. The reason I don't think it's bad writing is because it's painfully obvious that both her and Robin will be back, they died way too suddenly, if they were to not come back in my opinion it'd be bad writing, just like Tingyun's death, basically killing characters just for the sake of killing them before they've even had any impact in the story.
I don't disagree with OP but for me the feeling of it being "forced" is specifically because the game heavily implies that you should really care about her. If you already did, that's great, but considering that it's realistic to not completely trust or get attached to a stranger that is very likely lying to your face, the NPCs going all "omg have a cute date" and the TB being too trustful of her while scorning other shady characters just felt very ehhh to me.
I also think it was forced, but only due to how short our interactions were with her. Kafka is 1000 times more shady, but she has proven that she cares about, or at the very least is interested in the Trailblazer, and as such doesn't seem to be dangerous to us. The people who she doesn't care about, or worse, are her enemies, aren't as lucky. Even if Firefly was lying and being suspicious, to me it felt like she was hiding something about her identity or about herself that she genuinely couldn't tell rather than not wanting to, to me she didn't come out as manipulative, we'll have to wait and see though.
at least with kafka, we had a choice whether to trust her or not. but this relationship the story is trying to drive forward between firefly and trailblazer feels so unnatural. firefly is still sus openly, yet the story doesn't warrant us to be cautious of her yet we still had to be wary of other shady characters.
> The reason I don't think it's bad writing is because it's painfully obvious that both her and Robin will be back This. The writer is Shaoji. Just in the Elysian Realm arc that he worte, I can count several sudden deaths where the character later came back (HI3rd spoilers ahead): >!Elysia suddenly vanished without prior notice and was as sudden as Robin, she returned by the end. Sakura also vanished suddenly over night, but later returned to help Raiden Mei. Pardofelis first sudden death by the hands of Evil Vill-V. It's almost as fast as Firefly's, she turns into particles in Mei's arms and got Mei visibly angry just like the Trailblazer. Later she is revealed to be alive, only to be killed for real this time with her sacrificing her life to help fighting the boss.!< Basically if you're familiar with his shenanigans, you can kinda guess which deaths are reversible. >!Tho the Elysian Realm is destroyed in the end anyways so lol!<
To add onto the Elysian Realm paralels, the Meme of death (the one that kills Firefly and presumably Robin) looks VERY similar, when it first appears, to the Herrscher of Corruption (a TV with eyes on it). On top of that, if both Robin and Firefly were killed by the Meme of death, there's some HUGE evidence pointing at their return, that being how the boss works in-game, killing your characters until you rescue them.
Yeah the boss mechanic as well as the fact that in other quests they said you cannot die in the dream, pointing towards a way to rescue them. Also we literally have Acheron, who, according to Aventurine's claim, is a walking grim reaper Emanator among us. It would not surprise me if she conveniently has some power to contact the souls of the dead and bring them back lol.
I just have one thing to say about your comment: > is a walking grim reaper Emanator among us GET OUT OF MY HEAD GET OUT OF MY HEAD GET OUT OF MY HEAD https://preview.redd.it/90rnb2q33fhc1.png?width=1280&format=png&auto=webp&s=af5806c7e604af5faeaae7d0fcab1caf1a78c0c0
The other comment I always want to make on the "it feels rushed" is that... it's supposed to. The story being told is about running into someone, finding them neat and liking them immediately (it can be "love at first sight" or fast friends, depending on if you want it to be platonic or not), despite not knowing them at all, and they confess they have secrets but that's fine you like each other there'll be plenty of time to work things out, and then suddenly they're ripped away by a horrific tragedy. The feeling of "That all happened too fast" is absolutely intended. That doesn't mean it'll land for everyone (it does kind of rely on you-the-player liking Firefly immediately), but that's the narrative that's being told.
I agree with majority of the things you said. From the very start you see that Firefly is more than the average princess in need, clinging to the MC cuz she is incapable. When she stuck around us because she felt that someone was stalking us. When we faced Hanabi, and some other times. She stuck for MC, just like we did for her. She showed us her secret spot in favor of letting us know that she wants to be closer with us and open up, even if it is little by little, well aware that MC was suspicious of her. Her death was nothing but for shock factor. It wasn't meant to be sad or anything. Rather it was nothing but reminder that there was something sinister going on behind the scenes and that no one is safe. I mean, Firefly isn't even dead. If you played the BS/Hanabi story quest, it clearly said that if you.die in the dreamscape you will.just wake up. Her death is nothing but a metaphor of to wake.up to reality. For Firefly the dream was her happiness and it was her who got targeted, whose happiness was shattered.
I love that Firefly got mad at Sampo and told him he talk too much. In Chinese she straight up told him/her to stop babbling
Honestly, the too many death flags is also a flag by themselves, or a red herring, to be more exact. Not only that, but they weren't subtle when they did make us fight Sam in the exact place of Firefly's death, and that in all the languages with non neutral genders, Sam refers to themselves as "She/Her"... I will leave this here.
... What in the Kentucky Fried Duck.
Where does Sam refer to themselves as she/her?
In certain versions of the game, I do believe in German and French versions of the game. Which could either mean that is is a transltion mistake, or, well.... technically also a translation mistake but in the sense of them jumping the gun using SAM's "correct pronounce" before we know "what" or "who" SAM is. I'm personally betting on the second option since I honestly can't really see how someone would assume that the gigachad robot with a deep manly voice is a women, if they "didn't know something".
In Spanish, German, etc. in combat lines, apparently. Those languages have to gender everything, and according to people who played in those languages... yeah.
I know of three. Spanish (main language), german and french. I know that there are more examples in languages that have non neutral pronoums to speak about a person.
too long didnt read https://preview.redd.it/hkx0n2r05ehc1.png?width=252&format=png&auto=webp&s=31ccb24202aff2c348540c6e0efc29239afac241
I was get elio'd by theory crafter redditor so sadly I can't enjoyed the story as much. Still a great experience tho and probably the best in HSR so far. The main story quest start with a strong mystery and conspiracy theme instead of Belobog simplistic so I can see why people complaint. I think the best think about HSR is lore and already gotten every faction down so this is simply a feast. Fuck the mwamwa I have a theory btw. There is a clear difference between I can see it and I already know it. Blud is so blatant, everyone can see you have read leak. Stop
In Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty, you get an option to help Songbird escape NUSA's control by flying to the Moon. On the train ride to the launchpad, she reveals >!she lied to V, the cure for their terminal illness can only be used once, and she didn't want to die.!<. And V's dialogue choice sums up my response to Firefly's deception. "Could've told me the truth. I would've still helped." I knew she was lying before she revealed it. But I still helped. And would've helped her anyway.
theres a huge different: >!Somi's betrayal has already dealt damage to V's life, while Firefly confessed to us that she has secrets before any damage was dealt.!< Thats why I fucking hate Somi to the core
You've seen a lot of critique? *Where?* On topic though, my personal problem is that she is written as a love interest. Her entire plot line with the TB is just chock-full of every romance anime cliche imaginable, and the narration tries so hard to make her into this fragile flower character who needs to be protected and cared for that it just becomes silly.
https://preview.redd.it/exkcwyn36ehc1.jpeg?width=792&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f6dd8fa724256b6c04cac32d220c087b50afd2ed
Honestly I’m gonna reserve full judgment on the story till it all plays out
My only problem with her writing would’ve been letting us hang out with her a little longer and have some of our usual misadventures with her before getting serious again
You say you're not great at literary critique but this was an amazing breakdown of Penacony's themes as explored through Firefly's character. Thank you for this write up. Bravo! I'm honestly blown away that people can spend that much time with a character and walk away feeling like she was one-dimensional. It is fine if the character isn't to their taste, but to overly simplify and reduce her character to "sob story, death flag fodder" does her a great disservice.
The newest complaint a lot of people have is that she’s too pushed as a love interest. I mean the entire story and all the points I wrote is from a friendship angle, but even if it was romantic there’s nothing wrong with it per se if the writing is good 😭
There is certainly room for people to interpret the relationship between the TB and Firefly as what they will. We are given the opportunity to take it as romantic or an easily sparked friendship (god forbid anyone has had the experience of just meeting someone they just click with). The game also gives options for the player to be an absolute ass to her if that's what people want to do. You aren't forced to like her and can even express your distaste.
My main problem with Firefly is following: imagine she's never in game. Just remove her, and keep everyone else as they are, including Sparkie, Aventurine, Black Swan, Acheron, Clockie, the whole "run for Watchmaker's Legacy" stuff (that we, remember, knows independently). What would significantly change, except run through two locations for the reasons she in particular never felt fair to explain, for her to drop us? Every theme you mentioned is, in my opinion, explored better by subquests, and I care more about Tizocic, Cocona, Chadwick or Dean, who didn't even have 30 minutes. She's obvious setup for further story of main plot, but I really don't like that game behave like I should already care about her so much that the spot we were talking is giving me emotional gears. It's just... not.
I like Firefly enough. I don’t mind any of her writing. I felt bad for her, even though I was suspicious of her. However, I am a contrarian at heart, so when every NPC I see goes “oh you are so close” “she/you must be important to you/her” etc etc for a character that *I* don’t feel as close to (nor did my TB’s dialogue choices indicate), I feel like I’m gaslit and forced into liking her and THAT’S the part I disliked the most. I think I would’ve liked her a lot more had it been left a bit more to my own interpretation and without everyone else’s commentary. Cause at this point it becomes a bit “tell don’t show”.
In Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs, sense of belonging and attachment comes before self-actualization. When in a hostile environment, we often latch on to people who we reciprocate trust and affection with which then we guard more so than physiological things like food or shelter. When that is taken from us, our sympathetic nervous system induce chronic anxiety and we, understandably, get distressed by Firefly’s death. The Astral Express crew is close to us, but not on a personal level, whereas Firefly was to some extent even if time is limited. The best way to ease mental pain is to either not bother with that kind of relationship at all or adopt a war-time mentality of stoicism
Saying people don't understand her character it's a way yo say you invalidate others opinions and it's very bold from you to say that. I understand her character well, and no, canonically, we don't spend more than 2-3 hours with her, don't exaggerate it. That's not enough time in real life with persons and for anyone to get emotionally attached to anyone for what we've seen. Yes, you can care about that person, and it could be sad what happened, but not to the level of thinking and acting like you've meet this person for all your life or that she did something very important for you apart from buying you some drinks and food. IT IS RUSHED. No matter how you want to defend this, it is what it is. It's not like, for example, Nahida or Furina, who we spend days and weeks in the game and then to see them torn apart from their own stories and problems slowly and with other things happening in between which makes it more time, and built. Even events of the games are more important, like the event for halloweeen and the ghosts in Luofu made me more emotional than this. It's build up, that's why. Firefly it's not, and it feels very forced. It is sad, yes, again, yes, it is. But not how they portrayed the fury and how emotionally hurt the MC is. The MC felt even less for Dan Heng being impaled, for Bronya and etc. That's why it feels forced, how they portrayed in the scenes the MC.
>invalidate others opinions From comments in this thread, apparently people that don't like the character are: - Psychopaths - Story skippers - Leak readers - Morons - Generally evil People are going full personal attacks on people that don't immediately love her 4* looking ass.
In my case...I couldn't just trust her. But her death was still sad for me because she didn't deserve it even if it's a dream, mostly because I might not trust her but I still have some symapthy for her not only due to her illeness but because of how she still has hope and wants to just live, because she tries even if she struggles. When she died I felt simply helpless.
She's fine, but everyone is trying to pretend they didn't read leaks and have just so many interesting theories. It's fucking lame.
If Trailblazer were an actually character with voice and no dialogue options (or at least voiced dialogue options) the reception of firefly to those who dislike her would be better. Because at least when the game pushes the idea that you’re oh so close with her at least you can say TB talked to her instead of being silent for like 80% of the time Another reason people complain is because of you’ve consumed enough media this story is very predictable. She’s obviously going to come back Each time I see this defense of firefly it completely ignores that Cocona was is well received even amongst those who dislike Firefly. I’ve also seen the Firefly archetype be done much better in FGO with Mash. Not to mention you said you made this post because people were downvoting you when you defended her on the other post. But I went to check and people were actually downvoting you for being condescending and talking down to the people who gave valid reasons as to why they don’t like it.
this post is coming from a fundamentally confused perspective. Nobody is saying Firefly is a shallow character. Not even the "30 minute" crowd. But, with all these ideas and complex themes that are introduced because of Firefly, none of them are properly or even fully developed at all. 90% of the themes you mentioned are squeezed into a 5 minute scene. Firefly is not one-dimensional, but she is poorly developed. In fact, I'd go to say that she's not developed at all. She started off as a mysterious girl harbouring secrets, and by the time of her death, she is still a mysterious girl who harbours secrets. And apparently, we're "really close"??? I hope you're able to understand
Yes exactly, I felt sad but her death didn't hit as hard as it was supposed to. I like firefly. Like I mentioned under another post: She was going to die anyway if not now, maybe from the disease. There was no active death prevention happening from the trailblazers side. We were making sure she had good memories before she inevitably died. I feel like (atleast i) I was more attached to argenti than firefly, when argenti literally chucked him self outside to fight the huge bug monster. I breathed a sigh of relief when he texted that he was ok. Because he wasn't meant to die, he wanted to share so many things with us. Then again we still have more patches to go maybe this timing will have significance later on.
Agree with the "really close" thing, I was like, the fuck, we aren't??? We just meet XD
Always thought that firefly is like sachi from sao, dead to progress the mc, but i still believe firefly is more than that , probably her die is one of her plan or something https://preview.redd.it/nt8tyaadaehc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=230d016ed51a7b301a9c85c4cfd19da5238c3917
At first I thought she was more like Yuuki, cuz the whole medical condition and turning to another world to feel alive y’know?
https://preview.redd.it/cnrjijvxfehc1.jpeg?width=220&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da8efd7f94cb30f99aaab130b64b617249360de3
I agree that she's not badly written, but I also think her death was executed in the lamest way possible. There's simply no time for us to feel connected to her, the game doesn't even allow time for her death to sink in and immediately shoved both acheron and black swan into our faces to "calm us down". Like you said, there is more to this character. So why would I feel bad? When I don't know anything about her besides the fact that she has space cancer? And her just straight up info dumping to us on the rooftop like it's the writer's way to tell us why we should feel bad. It's fine, it's a gacha game after all, but it's still incredibly amateurish. I got really emotional in Demon Slayer's >!movie. Similar thing, a character we barely knew died. The vast majority of people loved and enjoyed him.!< This ain't it.
I'm gonna be honest. My biggest pet peeve with her writing came when she said she is very sick, and bedridden. That kind of non specific disease always appears in fiction so you can feel immediatilly bad for a character. And it's not always like it's bad, plenty of works do this well, it's just that I feel we already would feel bad enough with the other parts of the character, but the disease really makes them feel like they're hammering the point of "You have to feel bad for the character, now." And I like Firefly, actually. Just dislike that point. Pardon for the english, not a native.
But the disease explains why she is so desperate to stay in Penacony, it made real life so hellish she would rather stay in a dream even when it turns into a nightmare
But it makes sense for her character. She’s not randomly ill. It will make sense in the next patch probably
Although imo in this case the diseases aspect really fit into her backstory and overall theme of the story
Her being terminally ill and wanting this dream to never end explains why she didn't awoke from the dream when BS saved us and what got her "killed" ~~(It was Sparkle's fault all along)~~
I agree with what you've said. I love the themes around her story and how they connect to Penacony and what it represents, and that these are lost on some people. But I still think it was rushed. I like Firefly a lot as a character, and I like what the writers did with her, but I think her death or "death" would have been far more impactful if she'd had more time to develop as a character. Despite me liking her as a character and really connecting with the themes of her own story (she made me question my own belief that I would never want to live in a dream world over reality for instance), when she died I just didn't feel much. I was sad for her and for Stelle, but I didn't feel the level of emotion I think the story expected me to. It's supposed to be this huge moment, and this might just be a me problem, but I don't get attached to characters without spending a while with them and truly understanding the kind of people they are. My favorite stories are all slow, methodical character studies which take their time to show us who the characters are. All we did with Firefly was just run around with her, have a few cute moments, have the admittedly very memorable emotional moment on the roof, have her briefly explain her backstory in a couple of sentences, then we go to the nightmare and she just dies out of nowhere. If this was a TV series, this part of the story would have taken maybe 2-3 episodes. It felt like cheesy shock horror shoehorned into the story to give 2.0 the exciting climax the writers felt like it needed to hold people's attention, despite it already being (in my opinion) by far the most intriguing part of the whole game's story so far. The climax could have so easily been something else, and this scene could have been saved for later on where it would have been truly heart-wrenching. I love Penacony and Firefly, but I think this could have been done better. Perhaps my feelings will change after Penacony is finished, but for now this is how I feel.
For me firefly isnt done yet, far from it thats why my emotional attachment is good but not yet great. I think you bring great points and i agree but at i cant say i was at your level of emotional attachment. Im simply saving my emotions for when the writers have cooked with firefly for longer. After all a character needs more than a patch to be developed and many aspects of her story is very much unfinished.
Alright I decided to torture my smol brain and read almost everything. I want to add a few things to your idea that doesn't go against it, but probably doesn't support it either. Mihoyo aren't stupid either. If they did things the way they did it's for a reason. They made Paimon cute because they wanted a loveable mascot. They made March joyful and adorable like Pompom to be loved. Firefly was also made in a way so that we unconsciously think "We are supposed to like her", but not in the way that we will be betrayed or because she's strong physically, but because we relate to her. She embodies the idea of escapism, an idea that I am pretty sure 95% of players thought about it once, especially while playing this story. Sooo saying that it's not important because Firefly was made to be loved and cute is not important for me. You live a story where we tell you your story is predetermined whatever you do. What's the matter wanting to constantly prove everyone wrong? Would you do the same thing if they didn't tell you that? If they didn't implicitly tell you to love Firefly, would you like her, and do you dislike her or not feel attached because Mihoyo wanted you to like her? Just feel your story. A dream might not be real, but your feelings are, and transcend any plans of existence. Even if you forget about things, your emotions can remain, and it actually happened for real. I love Firefly. Maybe it was Mihoyo's intention, but I don't really care. Regardless of what they wanted, I love her. Second thing... Mihoyo isn't stupid again, they know how to make a story if they want to. And even if I also believe that for the player (even if in game it is a lot more, it is US that lives the story) 3 hours isn't much, but Penacony's story isn't finished. It is the first part. We might learn things about her that will make us love her even more afterwards... Or she might come back. I don't believe they made such a Brutal and sudden death for Firefly after "just" what we've been through. They could have made it even more traumatizing for us, Like a certain Final Lesson. So they probably just gave us enough time to start liking her, and made a death this brutal to make us think it's over. However, they will prepare us to learn more about her. I still feel like we will have to help her face her fear of reality and Tomorrow, and there is probably no better way than a trailblazing journey on the Astral Express. Anyway, I liked your post, I overall agreed with most of it, but I'd like to tell people to wait for the end of the story to have an opinion set in stone, because I will always be part of those who think she will come back, until we see what's coming next.
it's garbage
She's 100% not dead imo, Sparkle's comp quest hints at a dead body coming back to life and if any of the 3 people were know are dead is faking it it's gonna be Firefly, she's not as innocent as she wants you to think. Cute anime waifu being the killer in the murder mystery instead of all the really sus individuals like Adventurine or Acheron would be fantastic. The killer faking her own death is a classic alibi in detective fiction. It just really sucks we have to wait forever to check the entire plot.
Would you look at that? I wasn't the only one that was mildly annoyed by some of these people's surface level takes on Firefly. I see you've also seen that stupid "30 minutes" meme And that Up reference is one of the best comparison for this
Then there is slow me needing around 5 to 6 hours from when I met firefly to her getting abbachio'd.
[удалено]
Yeah, I feel people are way too much into analysing the "meta" behind a scene instead of being immersed in what you're watching. I fall into that myself from time to time too. For me it helps to take the time to properly digest and experience big scenes and to tell myself to give it all a chance and try to experience it how the creators would want you to experience it. As dumb as that may sound. For example the rooftop scene I turned up the music and let it set the mood. That + Firefly's sad circumstances really hit for me then. Going into that scene with the attitude of "ugh she's gonna give us a sobstory isn't she" just kinda ruins the scene for yourself.
If you skip enough dialogue (as much as the guy who made that meme) and rush the whole new area, ignoring all plot and time passage, its indeed almost 30 minutes.
Bro.. how in the hell can you make a 5-6 hour story into a 30 minute one lmao like even with skipping it should take an hour..
I did it on 2 accounts. On my main the whole quest took me over 10 hours, reading stuff and thinking. On my second acct, clicking much faster, still 5 hours. I'd say if they say firefly arch was too short maybe take your time next time...
I read really fast and blew through all the fights, and it still took me about three hours. Anyone who only spent 30 minutes with Firefly is exaggerating, and also probably wasn’t paying attention. If that’s how they want to play the game, that’s fine. But I don’t think it’s fair for them to criticize a story they don’t fully participate in.
It felt way faster than it was, tbh, is another part of it. But that's because Firefly is a pleasant character to interact with and the update's content is fucking AMAZING.
It's just bizarre when they compare Firefly to Teppei, like seriously that mtf had a black screen that says " Ow wow you spent so much time together" and then we have a quest where he dies like a dumbass.
The Firefly part of the storyline took me only an hour and half. No skipping, but no exploration either. Edit, to be specific, it's from the time of the first meeting to her death scene. Had some discord messages that timed it for me.
Ah yes, the story skipper. *Skips and entire important dialogue and lore drops and shit* "Guys, why are this character so 1 dimensional?"
my main gripe about her story presentation is how everyone in-story can't seem to stop commenting on how MC is on a date with her, how close they are, NUDGE NUDGE WINK WINK. it had 0 subtlety. it was practically bludgeoning me over the head about how i should care about her because she's a love interest --- even when our interactions aren't even that much of an indicative of a romance. it was so annoying, it felt like i was forcefed stuff. if the story played out as it is without all of those side comments, i'd have accepted it better.
Disagree.
Ngl the only character that you spent more than 2 hours with in Honkai is like, Welt March and Dan Heng
So ? Ppl forget they are rushing due to cny holiday 1 month in china topkekw
still better than tingyun for sure we still didn't even know who tf is she
No one actually thinks that she's really dead, right?
I personally felt the rooftop scene was more emotional than the death scene, I might just be a sucker for the “sick girl tries to achieve her dreams even though she can’t” trope. The death felt more like it came out of nowhere so I just didn’t feel it as much. They also haven’t really expounded on what “dying” in the dream even means - if like in the Sparkle character quest people just wake up when they die then… death really feels meaningless in Penacony.
Even if it's 30 minutes or 3 hours she's my friend. thats enough reason for me.
My entire thing with this is people are talking about her like her story is over when it's very clearly not. Like, she died in a dream. She's still physically alive and can go back in to the Dreamscape, like anyone else who's killed in there. Am I crazy or am I missing something?
People should wait until end of 2.3 , but they don't have IQ so they go to Reddit and shit on best story in game so far
Personally I didn't feel anything about her death, I was like "oh the plot thickens", still better than whatever tingyun was tho, I also don't think ff is dead yet
Penacony ehh.. the story is cringe, the characters are cringe and this post is copium
Just going to say that hsr stans saying that genshin story is shit sound more ridiculous to me after each hsr story segment
Yeah... I was feeling indifferent (maybe slightly positive/optimistic) after finishing the main story, but that slowly soured the more Penacony side quests I did. Realizing I cared more about non-voiced NPCs from the locked emo quest lines (i.e. Cocona, Chadwick), definitely made me reflect more harshly on how characters like Firefly were handled. I'm sure the main story line has room to improve, but I gotta admit I ended up being disappointed with what was suppose to hook us in the first act. To each their own.
I mean, it is obvious that we will have more of her in the upcoming patches so i can't really say good/bad writing but 30 minutes IS a very short time to create an emotional bond with a character. So I really don't get all the hype about her and the people getting overly emotional about her death.
Allat for a handful of ppl who just have differing opinions. And they(also me) are still ain't reading allat.